


The Lovecats

by rispacooper



Series: The Slutty Boys 'Verse [5]
Category: Psych
Genre: Angst, Case Fic, Humor, M/M, Pining, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-25
Updated: 2011-02-25
Packaged: 2017-10-15 23:02:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/165751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rispacooper/pseuds/rispacooper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the strip club, Shawn has figured things out, but not how to fix what he messed up. Then they end up working together on a case.</p><p>Number Five for the Slutty Boys, but with no actual sluttiness in it. Worse, I tried to be clever and failed. Sorry. But it's sort of making two stories one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

By all appearances, it’s an ordinary field on an ordinary, irritatingly warm, day. There are all kinds of grass and wheat and disgustingly fresh air, with no available shade and a crazy amount of bugs that seem to think Carlton was the tastiest thing they had ever seen.

It’s probably a complete waste of time for two experienced detectives who ought to know better to be out here, trying to peer beyond the swaying stalks of wheat and magically find a clue about why the hell they were here, though that all sounds a little too existential for Carlton’s liking.

But of course, there’s no point in wondering; he’s out here following another one of Spencer’s crazy leads. They’re not visions, they are definitely not that. But whatever they are, however Spencer does it, they usually work, somehow. So he’s standing like a lump in this stupid field, blinking up into the orange and trying not to see Spencer squinting at him.

Carlton keeps his back to the trees, peering blindly in the direction of his car even though it’s parked out of sight. There are other leads he should be following, other ideas that may not pan out, but at least he’d be trying, getting things back to what he considers normal before they get inevitably worse. It’s his call to make. Stand here waiting for some kind of Spencer miracle, or get back to work, maybe save a life.

If—when—Spencer finally gets his head out of his ass, he’ll call again. Carlton has never stopped to ask the other man when exactly he got the number for his cell phone, but he knows Spencer has it. Carlton had never saved Spencer’s number in return, but he’d bet his badge that Spencer still has his, programmed into his phone under that stupid nickname, maybe with some picture snapped of him looking ridiculous. He’s not about to ask why; Carlton is not asking why Spencer does anything he does, because thinking about it only leads him back to things he should have forgotten about by now.

If only Spencer hadn’t seemed so sure. Confidence that sounded too much like arrogance had demanded his presence here, his attention, and now Carlton’s burning out his retinas rather than watch the dance in front of him, Spencer shaking his ass and hopping back and forth like a bee trying to figure out the best directions to get honey.

...

This is the last place he’d thought he’d end up. The field is calm, beautiful, tranquil…and a bunch more adjectives that people use for fields. It’s a little on the warm side, but pretty...for a field. There’s not a building in sight either. There’s not anything in sight, actually, except for rows of walnut trees, acres of some sort of tall, swaying grain, and of course the people staring around at the rows of trees and acres of grass.

Shawn’s neck itches, sweaty and hot under his collar, his Spidey senses tingling a lot like the hum of bugs around them, a sound that’s almost soothing until it’s broken by a sharp slap and Lassiter swearing under his breath about irritating pests, and—call him psychic—Shawn doesn’t think he’s talking about the mosquitoes.

There’s no spot of skin exposed by Lassiter’s suit except for his hands and neck and Shawn’s intrigued enough to look and see where the bug got him. Lassiter sticks out in the field as much as Shawn does. The setting sun doesn’t light up his short hair the way it does Juliet’s blonde tresses and he hasn’t found a spot of shade like Gus. His pale skin is turning pink with the heat, dotted with sweat. He hasn’t even loosened his tie. Under his jacket he’s going to have massive pit stains. Shawn still wants inside it.

Lassiter looks down from trying to track mosquitoes and blinks, and Shawn is very, very aware of how warm he is in the flannel shirt he’d thrown on this morning, that the slight breeze is toying with his artfully casual hair, the fact that he shaved just that afternoon and he’s already scruffy again.

Lassiter is all buttoned up like he’s never been anything else and Shawn can see what Lassiter thinks of him in Lassi’s blue eyes, in the way Lassiter’s mouth tightens. What’s weird is the way his mouth is tight too, that he even cares what Lassiter thinks.

...

Working so hard, or more likely not working at all. The man is sly and infuriating even with pursed lips and tight eyes, and Carlton’s not sure he can wait to catch him looking this way again when they both know he has no right to.

 _“I am a very talented boy.”_

He knows the tone, recognizes it whenever Spencer directs it at him, and burns as the memory comes flooding back, leaving him restless and looking down furiously. He isn’t thinking about it, he tells himself again, because Spencer is too careful to make actual promises, but he always solves a case when he takes it.

He’d probably said the same thing to Leikin, if it was just a con, she would have known.

This field looks ordinary. Pretty, in a quiet way that makes Carlton think of childhood books like Tom Sawyer. One look over and it’s like Tom Sawyer in the flesh.

The burn stays in his eyes when he faces their little group and stares at the outline of Spencer, still for a second before their eyes meet.

Carlton works his jaw, not exactly certain what that makes him in that scenario. Probably just one more fool out of many, nameless and unimportant. Carlton has a sinking feeling that no matter how hard he tries, that will always be his role and it’s got nothing to do at all with the nights where it takes the memory of Spencer and a palmful of something slick to finally fall asleep.

He almost snorts, because he’s not even fooling himself, and a wannabe mind-reader like Spencer can probably see all of that in the circles under his eyes.

It doesn’t matter anyway, Spencer made that clear. Carlton turns his attention back to the case, to his partner standing near Guster, and notices how both of them are also keeping an eye on Spencer.

In the second before he remembers that he’s not supposed to, he wonders if Spencer can sense their concern, or just read it in their expressions.

...

Lassi’s eyes are all ice. Nothing unusual unless Shawn remembers how they used to blaze pure heat at him even while Lassi was listening to him. He falls back the moment Lassiter’s gaze touches him, coincidentally falling onto Gus and the spot of shade that he’s totally hogging. Gus catches him and pushes him forward again with an irritated growl. It’s like being bounced against rubber ropes and shoved back into the ring and no, he’s never let his dad try to teach him to box beyond that one time. All he’d learned was that the spit bucket was gross, and he has to learn to keep his guard up. He has to _always_ keep his guard up.

“Anything, O Amazing Psychic One?” Gus gives an apologetic shrug to Juliet and Shawn gasps and puts a hand to his chest to let Gus know just how hurt he was at that.

“I know where he’s taking the girls!” he’d told Lassi on the phone barely two hours ago, not saying hello, not asking if his favorite head Detective was having a good day, because he’d already known the answer, and anyway, he only had so much time with Lassiter before Lassiter hung up on him.

It was only a breath, held for a moment and then released slowly, carrying even through the phone that let Shawn know that Lassiter hadn’t hung up after all, that he had still been listening despite every time he’d ever called Shawn a liar and a fake. Despite that time in the bathroom, when he’d barely said anything at all.

Shawn had immediately shoved the phone at Gus and twisted away from Gus’ frown, though he could still hear the echo of Lassi-dopolous’ voice once Gus had started explaining. Gus was a faster explainer, he’d answered Gus silently with raised eyebrows, and Gus had given him what was supposed to be Burton Guster Suspicious Stare of Death but which really looked like Burton Guster’s Ridiculously Expensive Underwear is Giving Him a Wedgie, which is as ridiculous as Lassiter at an underground rave, as Lassiter fully dressed in that suit in this boring field.

“You said our guy is holding the girls here?” Juliet wonders and there’s something worried on her face as she glances around. “It’s just a field, Shawn. I don’t even see a shed.”

“I know but…” Shawn argues and then shuts himself up. He isn’t making a rough noise in his throat, but if he was, it wouldn’t be his fault. He knows he is right. He knows the girls are being held here. There are all these little bits of information that everyone from Lassi to Gus has been trying to fit together, and there’s only one place where the separate pieces _fit_ even if he can’t quite explain how yet. But he shakes his head, and frowns, and looks over around. Gus has crossed his arms and is watching him and Juliet is looking lovely and sorrowful and…it’s probably best not to look at Lassiter now. Lassiter is probably enjoying this.

Artfully arranged or not Shawn yanks his hands through his hair and jumps forward, standing on his toes to look over the tops of the trees. His hands are wet; he might be on the sweaty side too.

The answer _had_ to be here. He wasn’t wrong, even if they all had seen how possibly it was for him to be wrong. But this, though it might be hard for them to believe, this isn’t just about him here.

Three girls so far, living in the same sorority house, though thankfully not the one that had brainwashed Jules into almost permanent Barbie-dom. All of them taken with no warning, mysteriously returned after a week with their hair cut and dyed, their skin paler, their nails short and blunt. All with the same story of blindfolds and chairs and the same soft, male voice making them listen to music and poetry, painting their lips with the same cheap black lipstick. Really—the guy could have at least sprung for something from the Mac counter,

“The Dollhouse Kidnappings” the papers had called it. They didn’t know the details, how the girls had been tied to a chair, how when they’d tried to pull on the ropes the total psycho holding them had started to get angry.

It’s only a matter of time before it gets worse, and the police had the tiniest amount of evidence, unless Shawn has something to offer them.

Shawn finally looks over. Lassiter puts his hand in his pocket, touching his cell phone, but he doesn’t take it out. He doesn’t look at Shawn either, but what he’s thinking is obvious with a clue like that.

...

This is a very urgent situation, the stakes high and getting higher, and he can see in O’Hara’s face that she isn’t sure Spencer can handle the job this time, not after the last case. Glancing at him, stumped and quiet, Carlton isn’t certain either even if he can keep that off his face.

He manages a sneer instead, in case Spencer happens to look at him, a thrill sneaking down his back when Spencer turns and does just that. Carlton counts five, then moves his gaze, ready to puke at just how pathetic he is, that he just used the word “thrill” and meant it. He could make another resolution to ignore Spencer, to try to get past this, except that he knows it won’t work. He’s not a psychic, not that there is such a thing, but he knows that ignoring Spencer is like dangling a catnip-filled mouse in front of a kitten.

It’s possibly the only time he’s ever compared himself to a mouse, catnip-filled or otherwise.

There is so much to do, that needs to be done, and he’s in this field, just holding his breath and waiting. He knows why, even if the idea makes him clench his jaw tight and stare at the polished surface of his shoes.

There had been a backlog of cases needing his attention when the first girl had turned up, _stumbled_ into the station really, heavy boots weighing down her small body, her hair a midnight black mess, smeared lipstick across her cheek. The detectives investigating her disappearance hadn’t even recognized her, she hadn’t known herself after what this sicko freak had done to her, and when the second one of her blonde sorority sisters had gone missing, Carlton had felt that sinking feeling in his gut that every cop learned to trust, the one that said he was only looking at the first pieces of some nightmarish puzzle.

O’Hara, to her credit, had looked at him with dawning horror, her cop instincts apparently finally kicking in.

Three girls had been taken and returned so far and one was still missing after slipping her police watchdog for a date, and judging from the condition of the last one, smacked around for the first time, the bruise dark on her powdery white cheek, it was only a matter of time before the suspect escalated.

Kidnapping to assault and eventually to murder. And not a clue to lead them in the right direction except for traces of wheat in the girl’s identical black miniskirts and black stockings, and the crushed walnut shells found in the soles of all those heavy black boots, identified just that morning.

His back is still to the trees and Carlton moves, coming forward and looking back before facing Spencer. He thinks maybe his eyebrow is arched, but he leaves it and purses his lips while he considers those walnut shells and the fact that Spencer lead them to the closest walnut farm. His partner just sighs.

O’Hara looks tired, worn down with frustration from this case that no one seems to take seriously, except now that he’s no longer blinded, Lassiter can see Spencer sharing his partner’s frown, can see him jerking his head around to stare sharply over the waves of wheat when O’Hara points out the obvious fact that there’s nothing out here.

“I know, but…” Spencer’s voice is an octave shy of whining and Carlton pushes out an impatient breath, sucks in air again to keep himself from saying anything, though he wants to tell Spencer to knock it off, to get him to admit honestly that he’s as lost as the rest of them.

Spencer grabs his stupid hair in his hands and lets it slide through his fingers, and frustrated gesture or not, Carlton feels his palms itch, licks his lips for the taste.

Spencer can’t know, but Carlton watches him lick his mouth too. For half a second he looks like he’s frozen. He has only been that motionless once before, and Carlton drops his head, because he’s staring again, because he doesn’t want to think about that.

All the evidence that Spencer could be wrong leaves him with acid in his throat even though he ought to be smiling. Because of the case, he repeats to himself, as bad a liar as he was a husband. He reaches down to his pocket and lets his fingers rest on his cell phone.

When he looks up, he knows Spencer’s eyes will be on him.

...

Somehow Lassi was going to blame their increasingly weirdo cases on Shawn, as though Shawn could have predicted sorority girls in full emo gear. The combat boots alone... Well Mindy had not been pleased. She’d been less pleased when Jeni had been taken a day after they’d hired Shawn and Gus.

“He’d need shelter,” Juliet reasons out loud, trying to be helpful, and Shawn knows that, and if it wasn’t Juliet in front of him, he’d give her one of Henry’s best “oh really, kid?” glares. That part is obvious. He’d just…had a moment…when he’d read the lab report about the trace evidence, when he’d heard Mindy’s story about how she’d woken up in the trunk of a car and recited all the dialogue she could remember from her favorite movie to keep herself from freaking out.

 _Legally Blonde_ is only ninety-six minutes long. Mindy had been the only one to remember waking up in the car, whatever she’d been dosed with not working, or maybe she’d just been give a weaker dose than the others. Including the time she’d been unconscious, Shawn—ok, Shawn _and_ Gus…ok, _Gus_ —had guessed a search radius. Turns out, the Horton Family Walnut Orchard just happened to be in that radius, and next to a wheat field, though he should probably say “adjacent”. Gus had said adjacent and it _did_ sound impressive.

This must be the place. No place else had even come close to being this perfect. Everything in him, in itch, a hunch, a psychic vibe, whatever, he’s listening, he’s looking, it has to be here.

“I looked up the farm when you called, Shawn, and according to their building permits the only structures are several miles away, on the other side of the trees.” Juliet is stepping closer to him, her hands out, and Shawn looks up from the grass and fixes her with a smile.

“Maybe…maybe they were here but it’s not where he’s keeping them.”

...

O’Hara makes some little remark about the obvious lack of shelter and Spencer swings his eyes to her. There aren’t any buildings around here, which O’Hara tells him, telling the irresistible Shawn Spencer he’s wrong with a delicate scowl. She’s right of course, but the last time someone had doubted Spencer’s insane ideas, he’d proved a man had been murdered by a dinosaur.

Spencer is smiling at O’Hara like he’s thinking of that too. Carlton knows that smile, has seen several versions come and go from Spencer’s face. It is convincing and hopeful and secretive and it is probably that last part that got so many people to do what Spencer says, wanting to do anything to be part of his special circle.

 _Just you and me, we know the truth,_ that smile said, incorrect grammar and all, and if it still galled that Carlton had fallen for it, he could always take some comfort in the fact that that woman had apparently used it successfully against Spencer.

His stomach churns, bringing an icy burn to the back of his throat, and Carlton swallows it and wishes for another antacid.

“Maybe…maybe they were here but it’s not where he’s keeping them.”

O’Hara’s voice is gentle, the kind of gentle that makes Carlton flinch, because it’s not her real voice, it’s the voice she uses when she’s trying to make someone feel better, and again, Carlton is looking at Spencer. They’re all looking at Spencer, even if no one else will admit it.

If Carlton closes his eyes, he can see the afterimage of Spencer with a gun to his head. Of Spencer the morning after, not psychic enough to see an obvious trap, but smirking, loudly pretending he hadn’t fallen for a stupid lie like any other sucker out there who ought to know better.

A beautiful woman. Smart, and not once had Spencer even looked anywhere else. Carlton couldn’t blame him. She’d been young and attractive, and even more accomplished of a liar than Spencer himself. They must have had loads in common.

Spencer didn’t waste time. Carlton’s face is hot, his body shaking, and he squeezes his hands into fists and banishes thought of Spencer’s mouth, firm on his cock, soft against his neck.

She’d been just a little more clever than Spencer, for all that he’d treated the subject as a joke when his partner had asked about her. O’Hara may have bought the act; Carlton hadn’t, but he had seen that look on Spencer’s face before. He hadn’t believed in it, but he remembered it just the same, remembered it so well he dreamed it sometimes. Spencer frozen with uncertainty, his eyes wide, his forehead lined as though part of his brain was still trying to figure out just what he’d gotten wrong, trying to determine how it could even be possible, when Shawn Spencer took such delight in always being right.

Maybe he had known about Carlton, about what he had done with Hornstock, and as skin-crawlingly humiliating as that was, he could take comfort in the fact that Spencer hadn’t expected Carlton to leave him standing there.

So damn confident, warm hands sliding around his neck, across his chest, making offers of more, never once expecting Carlton to say no. That Carlton had been about to say yes was irrelevant and immaterial. For all his crazy impulses and bad taste in clothes, Spencer is a brilliant investigator who often even manages to be charming; anyone would have said yes. But Carlton had come to his senses and remembered just in time what an irritatingly over-confidant ass Spencer could be, what a liar he was.

And not just because Spencer had gotten careless and thrown Hornstock in his face.

Gotten careless and stayed careless, letting that woman get close to him until it had almost been too late to save him. Maybe that’s the reason Spencer dragged them out here now just to fall silent.

He wasn’t so confident anymore and he was still lying. Stalling right now with his friends close by him, with an innocent life in the balance, just because all the pieces _look_ like they fit here; nothing ever just fits like that. He had only had to say that he doesn’t know, he isn’t sure, and they can all search for new clues.

Carlton lets his mouth twist.

His own voice startles him, tears Spencer’s attention away from O’Hara’s nice but useless concern.

Spencer doesn’t seem so sure now, but he’s moving. His look is sly before he springs forward with a gesture right out of Shakespeare, if Spencer has ever seen Shakespeare, which Carlton somehow doubts, unless it involved that Dicaprio guy.

Carlton doesn’t know if Spencer read the lab report he had left open across his desk, but he turns to stare at the wheat field before he can ask. Spencer has resumed his little idiotic tango anyway, dancing around and thumping his chest and going on and on about how hurt he is. Right up until he suddenly stops again and fixes Carlton with a focused stare, so still that Carlton can almost see the spinning going on inside his brain.

He slaps absently at another irritating bug and Spencer blinks and looks at him, _looks_ at him, and Spencer might have chosen to forget their encounter in that damn strip club restroom, but Carlton hasn’t forgotten the strange, mesmerized look on Spencer’s face as he’d followed him in.

It’s there again in his expression, an answer to a question that Spencer hasn’t bothered to share with the rest of them. That he’s not likely to share. Carlton grinds his teeth together and breathes hard as he waits for the random remark that Spencer is sure to make.

Spencer circles closer and Carlton can hear his own breathing over the hum of the bugs, not that Spencer seems to notice. But his face is warm when Spencer edges into nearer and drops the bad English accent and goes on in his usual knowing tone.

“I am fabulous and brilliant, and you are a middle-aged detective who has been sucking on orange-flavored Tums and staying up way past his bedtime. What’s the matter, Lass, getting lonely?”

The pity in his tone is at odds with the way he turns away, and Carlton blocks out the rest of his words for a moment, knowing they are designed to embarrass him and piss him off. But his partner and Guster are laughing nervously and it’s enough to have his hands curling into fists, to make him lean in closer when he had promised himself he wouldn’t, not anymore.

Spencer is generating heat, probably from wearing flannel in the sun, but his body shivers at being so close. Carlton frowns at himself. It was no wonder Hornstock had seen it in him, this want and need. Spencer must have too, Carlton reminds himself, and pulls back at last just as Spencer turns around.

...

“What’s the matter, Spencer? I thought you always had the answers.”

“Oh the doubt! It stings!” Shawn thumps his chest once or twice where there actually is this uneven twisty feeling that’s almost like pain and cocks his head in Lassiter’s direction. Jules is still watching him, but Carlton’s—Lassiter’s gaze is zigzagging around them, at the field. He looks sour and suspicious and he slaps at a bug on his neck without a single word of complaint about getting bitten again.

Shawn’s internal vision suddenly presents him with the memory of Amanda—victim number two—scratching at the red bite on her neck when he’d first met her. He’d been too distracted at the time to ask about it—sixteen frightened sorority girls wasn’t really something he’d been ready to face ever again after the last time, and this time they’d all been crowded into the office, all blonde and all close to shrieking except for the three girls in the center, quiet and pale, with awful obviously home-done haircuts and dye jobs.

Hair like that…that’s the real crime.

He’d read the papers. Well, Gus had read the papers, Shawn had seen the news. It had still been more than strange, seeing three Goth princesses wearing Alpha Delta Pi shirts, saying someone had suggested they hire him, probably the other sorority house.

Shawn looks at Jules again and then shakes the thought away. Because he’s right, he knows he is, he has to be, even if…even if it’s suddenly, horrifyingly possible that he’s wrong. Wrong again, and almost too late again. Not always lately, maybe not so much, but the pieces, they all fit, even when he doesn’t want them to. It wasn’t like he wanted to be in this field, watching Lassiter blind himself rather than look at him. And Lassiter’s raised eyebrow would be answer enough, but then Lass moves, shifting to cross his arms and face Shawn, and everything about him says—again—that he’s waiting.

Shawn flicks his gaze down to Lassiter’s little Irish chin and lays out the clues available to him, one at a time, in his mind and still the answer comes out that it’s here, this field. It’s the only answer he’s got no matter how many times Lassiter asks him and Lassi has to understand that.

“Well we can’t help what we are,” he counters a little too grandly, and he’s never falling sleep to Gus’ PBS viewing again. He circles a few feet closer to Lassiter and actually _feels_ Lassiter’s attention focus as though he said something important. Lassiter doesn’t step back, and Shawn doesn’t breathe as he looks up. “For example, I am fabulous and brilliant, and you are a middle-aged detective who has been sucking on orange-flavored Tums and staying up way past his bedtime. What’s the matter, Lass, getting lonely?”

Shawn sweeps his gaze away before he can end up falling head first into pools of furious blue and looks over at Juliet and Gus. Then he grins and pulls in a loud breath.

“Oh my god, it’s you isn’t it? Terrorizing young girls with your desire to have your own vampire bride!” The half-smile that Jules quickly hides more than makes up for the death-glare that Lassiter is probably giving him. Shawn turns just in time to catch Lassiter’s eyebrows snap together and he tries a shrug.

...

“Am I wrong?” Spencer asks him innocently after announcing that Carlton is lonely and a vampire in practically the same breath. _After_ calling him old and sick and desperate, and with each word Carlton can only wonder why Spencer ever followed him into that bathroom. He runs a finger over the ring he still wears as a reminder of yet another failure and flattens his mouth to hold back his words. Then he counts to ten. Then twenty.

Spencer has on green today, which makes his eyes seem green to match, but Carlton has seen them look grey and blue as well, depending on whatever Spencer has thrown on that morning. The setting sun is hitting Spencer full in the face now and he’ll tan, because people like Spencer always tan, but for now it’s making his brown hair look more blonde, giving him color that almost disguises the shadows underneath his eyes that are close to a match to Carlton’s.

Carlton realizes he’s staring the same second that Spencer seems to realize he’s staring back and they both pull their eyes away. Carlton finds himself looking at Spencer’s chest, his stomach, and his palms burn with the remembered feel of him.

Vampires make him think of bad movies, and pale skin and death, and there’s Spencer again in his memory, smirking at him, hot and alive and smelling like vodka and Carlton could still feel shame that he had not once thought to ask if Spencer had been drunk. He hadn’t looked drunk, his mouth open to gasp at the stripper rocking into his lap, touching his jaw, his eyes sliding over to Carlton as though he couldn’t help himself.

For all his attention to O’Hara, Spencer liked brunettes too. That woman, the stripper…Hornstock… Hadn’t minded Carlton knowing that either, had seemed to _want_ him to know. And if he hadn’t…he had asked that question. That damn question, making Carlton think of everything he’d always wanted to beat out of Spencer. But he might settle for just one straight answer coming out of that mouth.

...

Shawn’s breath gets stuck in his throat and he coughs, which doesn’t change the fact that he’s on fire, directly in the sunlight and watching Lassiter’s skin go from pink to red. He ought to be laughing, because he can tell what Lassiter is thinking about, and it’s what he deserves. He was the one who had pushed Shawn away, not the other way around.

Cold. He’d been cold, shivering until he’d stumbled outside and seated himself at the bar. Gus had found him there and the way Gus wouldn’t meet his eyes told him Gus had somehow guessed everything, or at least enough to help Shawn home without a single “I told you so, Shawn.” Until the next morning anyway.

Shawn had been ready for a night of some hot and heavy Lassiter-loving. It was embarrassing how ready he’d been, _cuddling_ , cuddling Carlton Lassiter, leaning into him and letting him push his pink and surprisingly soft lips against his ear, and his throat. And one sentence, one tiny, little, less-than-innocent statement later and Carlton was pulling back from him, disgust clear in every shaky breath.

He had spied on Lassi and Hornstock, he knows that, Shawn can even…maybe…admit that it had been wrong. But first of all, Lassiter doesn’t know he spied and he’d had as much of a right to as Lassi had to make use of Hornstock’s body in the first place. Shawn tugs on his hair again then shakes his head. And secondly, he still can’t even figure out why just thinking about all of it makes him feel so _quiet_ inside, like his brain can’t figure it out either.

Lassiter is breathing hard, a slow, heavy release of breath that Shawn hears over the hum of the bugs, and even with the heat Shawn is shivering at the way Lassiter is only watching him, at the sour expression that has stayed on Lassi’s face for the past month that no amount of scratching or teasing or dirtynaughty sex with lying con artists posing as psychics had removed. If anything, Lassi’s sour face had only gotten worse, a match to the sour stomach that Lassiter is still trying to fix with chalky little pills.

Shawn puts his hands out and stares at them for a moment, confused.

...

Spencer looks at him and swallows, his mouth falling open. Carlton can remember that mouth at his throat.

Spencer made loud noises as he came, amazed, happy, lost, and the memory makes Carlton swallow too, and look at those hands stretched toward him. His name, over and over, his name and not that silly nickname.

“If you don’t have the answer, Spencer, just say so and we’ll try to think of something else.” His voice is low and rough, rumbling through the silent field and a glance over lets him see O’Hara blinking at him, her eyes bright in a way that makes Carlton nervous. He turns his head and catches Guster watching him, his eyes narrowed.

“It’s not the end of the world,” he promises in the make-nice voice he’d only used in couple’s therapy and rolls his shoulders at both looks.

...

Shawn lifts his head and Carlton is scratching his neck, his blue eyes looking just about everywhere but at him. “It’s not the end of the world.”

And as weird as it is to hear something like _that_ pushed out of Carlton Lassiter’s mouth, it’s nothing compared to Shawn hearing himself talking.

“It’s here,” he murmurs and Lassiter freezes. “Trust me.” And _again_ with the words coming out whether he wants them to or not. Next thing he’d be screaming out _ohyesLassiplease_ again, and this was hardly the place for that. That was for his bed at night, and the shower in the mornings, and sometimes in the office while Gus goes to get lunch.

“Of course we trust you, Shawn,” Jules steps in quickly but Shawn is watching the Lassmeister and something twists in him again, painful but different than before, when Lassiter snorts. And what is with that anyway? And the standing around feeling like an idiot, standing around at all, like he’s waiting for something? But his feet aren’t moving, even after he’d bought them a new pair of red Roos, and if he couldn’t move soon he was going to have to try talking to Henry. The situation could not be more dire.

Henry would probably just tell him he shouldn’t have said that. Which he already knew, thanks, Dad. Of course Lassiter doesn’t trust him. He thinks Shawn is as bad as Lindsey, he thinks Shawn used him in some sort of game, thinks Shawn would lead them all out here just for the hell of it. When really Shawn doesn’t know why he’s here at all except he knows it’s right and he’s getting really tired of dancing around when it should obvious that he’s trying and he’s right and _still_ he’s staring at Lassiter.

...

His partner might have no problem admitting she trusts Spencer, but Carlton keeps himself absolutely quiet, completely certain that Spencer knows exactly why he shouldn’t. It’s Spencer who hasn’t bothered with the truth, they both know that. But he brings a hand up to his gun and then drops it and he’s talking before he can even register that he’s being just that stupid around Spencer. Again.

But no one had forced him to come out here, and Carlton has never been good with lying. No wonder Victoria had won every fight. His face is burning and only gets hotter when Spencer responds by asking everyone if Carlton is being encouraging. It’s obviously a joke until he moves, and Carlton finds himself pinned beneath Shawn Spencer’s focus.

...

“Well nobody forced us to come out here, Spencer,” Carlton remarks tightly. Those pink and surprisingly soft lips curl in a small, fake smile and Shawn reads that as easily as he reads the way that Gus chews his lip and twitches when he’s playing online poker. It says he’s waiting for the _fabulous_ and _brilliant_ psychic detective to get to it.

...

Shawn’s the one not breathing now, like a hundred mile-an-hour tennis ball just hit him square in the chest. There’s probably surprise all over his face and he has to turn before Lassiter can see it.

He looks at Gus, shares his frown.

“Correct me if I’m wrong here, Lassi, but are you _encouraging_ me?” he wonders out loud without looking back and Juliet makes a strangled noise that’s pretty much a disbelieving laugh and shoots a glance over at her partner.

Shawn is sliding back over to Lassiter too, before he has a chance to even ask his feet what they are doing.

...

Carlton knows his eyes are wide and he thinks about taking a step back until he remembers that he’s dealing with Shawn Spencer, and there’s no way in hell he’s going to be the one give ground first. He jerks his chin up and stays where he is while Spencer inches closer. Guster is making all sorts of coughing noises, the kind he makes to bring Spencer out of one of his fits, but for once Spencer looks like he’s all there.

“ _Shawn_ ,” Guster adds after a moment and Spencer actually stops. It takes a lot to look into Spencer’s face and Carlton can’t stop the flush of color across his cheeks. It makes him clench his jaw, because the light is back in Spencer’s eyes, making them every color but ordinary, and they’re too damn knowing, and Shawn Spencer or not, Carlton takes a step back. When he does, Shawn glances down, hiding whatever he’s thinking, and Carlton can’t help noticing that his eyelashes are long, and turn the same bright shade in the sunlight.

Then he thinks that he might be well and truly screwed if he’s noticing Shawn Spencer’s eyelashes.

But they’d felt long, fluttering softly against his neck. And as for ‘might be’, he’s been screwed for months now, something that fucking another man in place of Spencer had forced him to realize.

Spencer’s eyes are asking him another question, and Carlton can pull himself together at that at least, shut his mouth and glare. They’ll both pretend he hadn’t stepped back and that Spencer hadn’t, for whatever insane reason, followed him again.

She had been the first thing Spencer had chased after, after Carlton had left him in that bathroom, and this time Spencer hadn’t bothered to pretend that he wasn’t chasing her. Just like with O’Hara, he had been obvious and even obnoxious, single-minded in his determination to get another sucker into bed with him, evidently not giving a rat’s ass for anyone else’s feelings. They’d been a lot alike in that respect.

...

He’s staring at Lassi as he gets closer, his mind whirling again, collecting and presenting evidence. It’s possible that Lassiter is just waiting to see him fail again, to mess up as badly as he had with Lindsey. After the scene at the airport, Lassi had been obviously absent, keeping to his side of the station, his “office”, typing up reports, interviewing their suspect in the interrogation room, Jules outside to keep an eye on him, maybe to make sure Shawn didn’t try to watch through the glass.

He hadn’t thought of that before, that they might have kept him away, and he wonders if they’d discussed it, discussed him. But one look at Lassiter’s tight jaw tells him that’s impossible. Lassiter looks like he’s getting ready to take a hit just thinking about her.

All of which meant that possibly everybody already knew that Shawn had been made a mistake, and, as Lassi had just implied, they were all still here. _Lassiter_ is here, his arms crossed and his head cocked impatiently, his face a horrible shade of pink that only made Shawn’s mouth dry. He should make a joke, say something. Lassiter is a man made of stone again, hard, white marble, but the angry heat is coming off him in waves.

It was warm in the field, warm almost like he had been chasing after Lindsey, having her chase after him, after getting ordered out of the bathroom stall, getting shoved away and held there with one cold look from Lassiter, watching Lassiter show up to the station two days later with his hair buzzed.

It was honestly a little sad just how much Shawn had been watching Lassiter’s hair, waiting impatiently for it to grow back to a length he could slide through his fingers, arrange to fall in that little Superman curl over Lassi’s forehead.

The hair is because of Shawn; it’s too much of a coincidence to be anything else. And it’s another thing to confuse him, like signs he’s supposed to be reading leading him in all different directions, not fitting together yet because something is still missing.

He looks at Lassi’s hair and he just gets angry in a way that has nothing to do with it being a bad haircut. Though it’s awful and all wrong for Lassi-face. Either Lassiter did it himself or paid someone less than eight dollars to do it at a place with “Super” and “Cuts” in the title.

So no one had believed him about Lindsey. That shouldn’t be a surprise; Lassiter never believed him. Except for when he did. When he had, letting Shawn move his hands beneath his suit jacket and gasping out orders into Shawn’s hair and Shawn had….really, really screwed things up in a way that apparently really, really mattered.

Henry would have yelled at him and to go back and look again—if Shawn would have told him, which of course, no, never, ew—because obviously Shawn is missing something obvious. But he hadn’t and he wouldn’t, why should he? It’s nothing to him if Lassiter wants to cut his hair and ignore Shawn, just like it’s nothing to Lassiter if Shawn acts like it never happened, that they never came close to spending the night together, that Shawn had turned right around and chased after… And Lassi is looking at him like he hates him. Which ought to be an improvement after ignoring him for the month before that, but it’s not, not at all.

Hearing Lassi make a joke about Chip and Dale, it’s almost like before, back in the good old days when Lassi had indiscriminately thrown him against walls and Shawn had mocked his hairline and his love life and the only thing between them had been air.

At least, he thought it had been air. Maybe it hadn’t been, considering how much he could use some indiscriminate up-against-a-wall time with Lassi and that maybe that’s why he’d been making all the jokes about Lassi’s hairline, and his love life…and maybe his skin tone.

Lassi is pale, and burning out here. Hours in a tanning booth and Lassi would probably still burn. But of course he didn’t bring any sunscreen with that bottle of Tums hidden in his suit pocket. It’s like Lassi couldn’t help looking like he spent all his time in a crypt.

It’s still a mystery why Shawn would want him, but there it is, all that creamy white skin beneath that suit that’s got Shawn’s imagination working overtime.

Creamy. White. Skin.

Shawn snaps his head up and catches the flash of recognition in Lassiter’s eyes right as the other man leans away from him, and even not really understanding Lassi’s motives, he follows, stepping in after him with his chin up.

...

Spencer looked like her. She had been cool, faintly challenging, and even trying not to look, Carlton had seen their exchanged glances, the kind of look that people like Spencer specialized in. The heated glance across a smoky bar, the kind of look that pulled people into restrooms and alleys, the kind of look Carlton had never received before. Not until that night anyway. To Spencer he had probably just been _there_. And if he ever needed proof that it hadn’t been more than that, he only had to think about her.

He’d been waiting long enough. He was roasting out here, probably turning as red as Spencer’s shoes.

“If Chip and Dale and the rest of the Rescue Rangers are done…” Carlton doesn’t finish, and he doesn’t look at Spencer though he sees Spencer looking critically up at his haircut for at least the fifth time that day alone. O’Hara makes a startled face that her quick scowl doesn’t quite cover. Guster lifts his head and frowns.

“Didn’t know you enjoyed the Disney Afternoon, Lassi,” Spencer comments softly. “And I so call Chip, Gus. Though honestly I was always more of an Aladdin fan.”

“No _way_ am I Dale, Shawn,” Guster snaps back. And it’s like nothing in the world could ever persuade Spencer to take anything seriously.

“I was working the night shift then and had lots of spare time during the day,” Carlton grunts but ignores Spencer’s small smile. Spencer is still standing far too close to him, his eyes half-closed, like he’s trying to get his fake psychic vibes from something. Carlton wants to back up again, but doesn’t. Spencer is warm, has to be melting in his flannel shirt, but on Spencer sweat looks good, and the man probably knows it. For the barest second he imagines Shawn Spencer wearing that stupid vest and baggy pants combo that Aladdin had always worn to show off his golden skin. His own skin is so white that it looks like he’s been held in the same place as all of their victims.

“…Really more of a Jafar with that skin tone,” Spencer finishes and Carlton blinks and actually meets Spencer’s gaze. He’s gone from being a vampire to a Disney villain and just when he’s about to open his mouth to tell them all that he’s had enough, and that Mozenwrath was a more effective nemesis than Jafar, he sees the careful smile drop off Spencer’s face. All his attention focuses inward and Carlton’s heart kicks nervously against his chest because that looks means Spencer’s about to start in with the dramatics, but it also means Spencer has the answer.

He leans away with a caution borne of experience when Spencer abruptly snaps back into the moment and his smile says he has it, and it’s so good, that it’s going to be so much better than anything else will ever be.

Carlton can feel the words wanting to pour out of his mouth in response to that look. Spencer’s face is dusky, shining.

“Skin. Their skin. White like Lassi’s here. Too pale for girls with lifetime memberships at every Planet Beach tanning salon.” For the first time in a month, Spencer reaches out, stepping forward to match how Carlton has pulled away. Carlton twitches and goes still, staring into the other man’s eyes as Spencer drags his fingertips across his cheek for no real reason and lets them rest at the edge of his mouth before he finally pulls them away. He remembers that dancer doing the same to Spencer right before she’d straddled his lap, and it only takes him a second to imagine Spencer crawling over him.

...

He’s diving back into fierce, warm blue and Lassiter is letting him, waiting, holding his breath just the same as Shawn reaches for him, his face, his mouth.

“…Too pale for girls with lifetime memberships at every Planet Beach tanning salon…” he mumbles, forgetting everything he’d been going to add when Lassi does not pull away from him. He drags his fingertips across Lassi’s bottom lip, and sucks in a breath at the rush of color through Lassi’s skin. Maybe Lassi _is_ a vampire with skin like that, but Shawn is thinking he might be down with that, Carlton’s mouth moving across his neck.

...

O’Hara speaks up and Carlton coughs. She’s bringing up the case with the speed dating and naked men—and Spencer’s mistaken focus on the tanning salon—and Carlton has a chance to clear his throat and break eye contact. He makes a note that he owes O’Hara a coffee for that, and puts a hand to his face as Spencer watches.

“I can feel them here,” Spencer insists, softly and O’Hara makes a noise that says she’s trying to understand. Carlton yanks himself back into the case, refusing to count that it’s the third time he’s had to in just one afternoon.

...

“This isn’t going to the tanning fiasco again, is it?” Juliet wonders, but Shawn doesn’t turn. He might even be frowning a little, because at the sound of her voice Lassiter twitches away.

The pads of Shawn’s fingers feel rough and scorched, in a good way, and he thinks that now that he’s finally done it, he _has_ to touch Lassiter again. But Lassi turns his head this time, his breath catching. It’s not a subtle reminder at all, but Lassiter is not a subtle kind of guy. Or maybe he is, because he still hasn’t moved away. Shawn curls his hands and breathes out.

“I can feel them here,” he tries and then shakes his head and makes a face. It’s like nobody believes him anymore. He waves a hand and opens his mouth, trying to think of the right words when he doesn’t even know what he’s supposed to say. The wrong words have a tendency to hang in the air way longer than they should.

...

Spencer’s got it all right, and he’s not listening to any spirits. The frustrated grimace on his face tells him that plainly enough and when no one believes Spencer, his gestures only get more out of control. Carlton shuts his mouth hard and it’s like the silence is all Spencer is waiting for. He lunges forward and shuts his eyes and if Carlton doesn’t put out his hands to grab at his elbow, he’ll fall.

It’s tempting.

...

Lassi’s hand is hot through his shirt, strong enough to hold him up and also hurt, just a little. Shawn gasps, warm all the way through even before he’s consciously aware that he’s leaning against Lassiter. His mind gathers evidence without him, Lassiter’s hand, supporting him.

“They came through here. In a…no that doesn’t make sense, ladies, ladies, you need to calm down.”

...

Spencer _is_ hot, strong and weak all at once, stumbling into Carlton, babbling away. There are no spirits flocking around Spencer, but Carlton imagines them anyway, a whole gaggle of blondes with long, straight hair and the one token brunette, then the three exceptions with their dyed black hair and chipped nails. Their thick glasses and heavy clothes were all down in evidence at the station, but they had been there with their stories in Spencer’s office. All three of them looking like Carlton’s college girlfriend.

A dozen sorority girls talking at the same time, somehow perfectly decipherable to Spencer as they’d talked about the blindfold and the dark, the music. Spencer taking it all in stride, only occasionally looking up over the sea of Coach bags and oversized sunglasses as though needing help, a frown between his eyes when Carlton had left O’Hara to explain and taken off.

...

"It's so dark _down here_ ,” Shawn hints as much as he can and opens his eyes to see Lassi scowling thoughtfully. A moment later his eyes drop to the ground. Shawn shuts his eyes again and tries not to smile. It’s totally not the moment to smile. That’s for later. But he wants to smile so much that he can feel it in his toes, all warm and scrunchy.

He wants to talk too, to say Lassi or Carlton, and that’s not really startling anymore, just how it feels to have Lassiter trusting him. His chest is heart attack tight again, but he must be getting used to it, because he barely slows down at all. He just points and waves and tries to make everything as clear as he can for Lassiter.

He deepens his voice too and tries to droop miserably, which is way harder than it ought to be. “Dark and black, like my soul,” he pouts like the emoest emo boy that ever was. He purses his lips, recalls Lassiter’s sliding through his hair as though he suddenly hadn’t thought Shawn’s hair was ridiculous anymore. “Black, like the Raven, like page after page of bad poetry written with a pretentious feather quill.”

“Cold,” he lifts his head to switch to someone else, and Little Girl Voice has never been so useful. “And icky damp down here.”

“Underground?” Lassiter asks in disbelief and Shawn opens his eyes and looks at him. Lassi is frowning at Jules. “When you looked up this land, did it say what it used to be used for?”

“Farmland.” Jules is quiet, thinking back. Her frown clears after a second and she’s radiant with the realization. “But in the Fifties the Government owned it.”

“The Government? For what?” Oh _now_ Gus is excited.

“Probably Cold War surplus storage.” Lassiter takes his hand away to tick off on his fingers and Shawn fights away a serious frown of displeasure and then snorts to realize exactly _what_ would pull Lassi’s attention from him. “Guns, emergency supplies hidden underground in case of a nuclear attack. Possibly a bunker as well, if it did house weapons…”

...

“It’s so dark down here.” Spencer, surrounded by imaginary sorority girls or not, shoots Carlton a long look with his last two words before he shudders dramatically and goes on about the cold.

It only takes that moment, and he doesn’t know if it’s despite knowing Spencer or because he knows Spencer, but Carlton looks down at the ground. He wets his lips and glances up at O’Hara, who, as junior detective, had had to research this place when Spencer had called.

Underground structures are pretty rare on the West Coast unless they’re in wine country, but there are exceptions. The moment O’Hara mentions the military, Carlton remembers that special on hidden bunkers of World War Two. The government had wisely planned for future attacks by hiding and protecting all the valuables.

“…Guns, emergency supplies hidden underground in case of a nuclear attack…” he lists them and then pauses. “What?” Carlton asks when they all stop and stare at him. Why the hell is Spencer’s mouth twitching? He intensifies his frown. “I like the History Channel.”

“He’s right,” Guster agrees after a pause, as though Carlton had needed the help. He shoots a glower in the other man’s direction and tries not to look back, though Spencer is watching him again. He hasn’t really stopped watching Lassiter, not today, not for this past month and whatever it is Spencer expects him to do, he’s not going to give him the satisfaction.

He rolls his shoulders and scans the field again, looking for a sign of…something…and when he flicks a look back, Spencer is smiling, as though that is just what he wants. Carlton scowls.

“Of course you like the History Channel!” Spencer laughs at that, just about on his toes, and Carlton clenches his jaw. Stupid psychic always thinks he knows everything.

“Well if you know everything, where are they?” he demands, forgetting for a second that he hadn’t said the first part out loud, that he has been trying not to talk to Spencer much at all. Spencer’s a mind-reader, let him guess if he doesn’t know already. Carlton’s mind is right there, every humiliating thought and memory right near the surface whenever Spencer is this close.

“He just needs a moment to consult with the spirits again,” Guster steps in again and Carlton twists up his mouth in a little sneer. He even _thinks_ a sneer, just in case Spencer really is psychic after all, and it’s a sign of how crazy he’s going that he can possibly think that. And it’s _absolutely_ mental to note to Spencer’s eyebrows jerk up for a moment as though he read that sneer anyway.

Spencer stares at him and his smile slips before he replaces it with something bigger, cocky and ridiculous, a smile he hadn’t had a chance to use in that bathroom. No chance to use it because Carlton had told him to stop and he’d stopped, honestly confused there, his low, intense question hanging in the air between them. Carlton is still sick to think about that question, how Spencer had known, though none of that was material compared with the result. Spencer’s eyes wide, his throat working while he’d remained frozen, hovering on the balls of his feet when Carlton had put a hand up.

He could hate Spencer for that, letting him see a real emotion after what he’d done.

Carlton tears his gaze away and stares at his partner. She’s staring at Spencer too, as though she’s not a cop and it’s somehow fair for them to rely so much on someone else. If Spencer knew the answer, he would have led them there already. It’s obvious that he doesn’t know just like it’s obvious that Spencer is incapable of simply saying that he doesn’t know. He’ll just keep offering up scraps until someone tells him he has done a good job.

It’s almost pathetic really, but the uncomfortable newness of the thought doesn’t stop Carlton from speaking.

“It’s not going to show up on any map or registered blueprint,” Carlton tosses out at Jules and watches her watch Spencer as the idea takes hold of them. He’s not planning on looking at Spencer, but the man suddenly jerks into motion, dropping onto his knees and then popping back up to jump in the air. Carlton’s knees ache just looking at him. Not that he’s thinking about Spencer’s knees. Not at all.

But when he looks up and blinks, Spencer and his idiot partner are going on about the fun they are going to have searching a hidden bunker, as though it’s filled with pirate treasure. He swears he hears the word “Dude” about six times.

“No, no you don’t.” There’s no way in hell Spencer is searching anything with that sicko around and being the weirdo magnet that he is. Putting an end to their fun just makes Spencer pout at him, a lot less successfully than his partner does, but then O’Hara speaks up again, reminding him about their agreement about not damaging the property.

...

There is nothing more boring than the History Channel, so it makes total sense that Lassi would love it. The man enacts battles and enjoys dress up a little too much too. What makes less sense is the fact that Shawn wants to make fun of him and kiss him for it at the same time. Dude. He’s never been more grateful for a case that can take his mind off bizarre and horrifying thoughts like that one.

He settles for mocking Lassiter a little more and then moving quickly on when Lassi fixes him with a pouty, confused frown that is borderline adorable.

“Dude, Lassi’s right. Spread out and look for…uh… Gus what are those things like with the sewer, or like at a bank…? You know, with the twisty knobs and the locks?”

“A vault door?”

“Yes!” Shawn is in the air again and even Jules takes a step back. “The entrance to an underground storeroom. Dark and damp and secret. Dude…!” He spins back to Gus. “…We get to search a bunker!”

“No, you don’t,” Lassiter immediately butts back in and Shawn turns at the same time Gus does to object. “You get to stay here and out of harm’s way while O’Hara and I search. And keep an eye out for anything suspicious.”

“Aw, but Lassi, wouldn’t four people searching go much faster?” Shawn argues. Lassiter’s head comes up, blue eyes wary. “Think of the girls,” Shawn goes on before Lassi can open his mouth.

“Why not just call everyone out to search?” Gus reasons, either trying to be helpful, or more likely, trying to get out of going anywhere dangerous.

“We don’t have a warrant. The owner gave us permission only as long as we didn’t disturb anything. A search team is definitely going to disturb things.” Jules explains in a sigh, always coming out on the right side—Shawn’s side—and Shawn grins at her.

“Fine.” Lassiter spits out the word and Shawn spins to include Lassi even though Lassi just glares at him for it. The Head Detective is speaking, and Shawn’s hardly going to object to _that_. But when he nods, Lassiter just looks at him even more sourly, suspicion in his raised eyebrows. “We spread out and look, when we find proof, then we’ll call in for backup.”

...

“Fine.” Carlton bites out and when Spencer spins around he glares at him. Spencer just nods in happy agreement, probably not at all bothered by the fact that Carlton is going to have to stop on the way home and buy another package of Tums. “We spread out and look, when we find proof, then we’ll call in for backup,” he decides out loud and then gulps down air and tries not to look too pained when he realizes what he just said.

He fails of course, judging from Spencer’s face.

...

Lassiter looks like he just about swallowed his tongue when he notices that he said ‘when’ and not ‘if’. Shawn’s practically shaking with that urge to crawl inside Lassi’s suit, an urge that had never really gone away, ever, that one that only gets worse whenever Lassi does something that even Lassi knows is beyond sad.

“Oh, Lassi,” Spencer sighs and even done in the voice that Carlton is starting to think of as Spencer’s Little Girl Voice it sounds a lot like Spencer is actually pleased. If anything, even with the heat, Carlton can feel himself getting warmer.

He doesn’t need to be a mind-reader, Carlton’s being obvious enough.

He makes himself sneer and walks away. A moment later he has to turn back, because he knows exactly what an unsupervised Spencer and Guster can get up to; they are lightening rods for stupid lunatics. Spencer just bobs his head and follows Carlton’s waving finger like Carlton is an orchestra conductor in a cartoon.

“But no stupid heroics or thrashing around. If you’re in any danger at all, you call one of us.” His hand is out instantly, poking Spencer hard in the chest and wiping that stupid grin off his face.

“I’ll just wait in the car…” Guster murmurs, already in motion. If only Spencer had half his sense.

“Dude!” Spencer scolds without even turning around. Guster stops and punches the air in frustration and then seems to remember that they are all still there, and can see his little fit.

...

“Gus, the life of an innocent could depend on you.”

It might be why when Gus whines, Shawn is a little harsher on him than usual. Though Juliet is watching, Gus could at least _attempt_ to man up. It might also been the reason that when Lassi takes off without another word, Shawn stays where he is instead of edging his way closer to Jules.

...

His words are serious, but Spencer is staring steadily ahead, nodding his head as though he’s answering a question that Carlton knows for a fact he hasn’t asked.

“But…” Spencer goes on a second later and Carlton jerks away from him and starts walking. O’Hara, being smarter than Spencer, takes off in the opposite direction, her hand at her side. Spencer and Guster will probably head after her, more like Chip and Dale than they want to admit, not that Carlton cares; he is fine with being alone. Totally fine.

...

Jules frowns after Admiral Lassington, then at Shawn, but she waves at the trees and then takes off in that direction. Shawn turns to Gus and Gus is still standing there.

Weird. It’s the perfect opportunity to be alone with Jules, but he’s shaking his head before the thought is even finished. Jules won’t need the help anyway.

Shawn points at Jules. Gus shakes his head and waves his arms. So Shawn has to point again, jumping with the force of it and Gus scowls and jerks his shoulders forward before he goes after her. Shawn doesn’t have to be psychic to know that the second Gus catches up to her he’ll be all smiles, but he stays still long enough to watch it anyway.

Shawn grins and hops forward too now that Gus and Jules are taken care of. He turns his face up to the sun that Lassiter really does need more of and pretends not to notice the momentary pause as Lassiter hears him coming up from behind. It makes him feel a little like Pepe LePew, and really, Pepe would have been kind of a jerk if there hadn’t always been that moment when the girl-cat _almost_ went for it.


	2. Chapter 2

There’s a soft commotion behind him that Carlton does his best to ignore, but after a moment the sounds fall away to just the nearly-silent sound of footsteps and careful breathing that Carlton knows aren’t Guster’s. He straightens up and feels his chest get tight.

The physical reaction is not what he not what he would feel for his partner, even if O’Hara were capable of this much silence. His footsteps slow despite himself and Carlton inches his head around for one quick look and twists it back at the glimpse of stupid hair.

He doesn’t understand, when O’Hara is out there and there might be the chance to play hero, but if anything it’s probably just to drive Carlton crazy. Not that he’s going to ask why, or what the point is of insisting that everyone split up if Spencer is just going to follow him around; he wouldn’t believe the lie he’d get for an answer anyway. He inhales through his nose, smelling the dirt and manure that’s probably all over his shoes.

It will be all over Spencer’s new shoes too. That’s a thought to make him smile and keep walking.

...

“Do you know what ‘spread out’ means, Spencer?” Lassi wonders without turning or even slowing down, and he has some seriously long legs. Shawn _could_ ask Lassiter to slow down, but that would be like admitting he’s chasing after Lassi again.

“Do you know what crazy psycho kidnapper means, Lassi?” Shawn wonders smartly instead, just a little out of breath, and nearly walks into Lassiter’s back when Lassi stops. They’re close, close and alone this time, and it’s been a month but Shawn can feel the tension in Lassiter’s body as he breathes out.

...

“Do you know what crazy psycho kidnapper means, Lassi?” Spencer wonders in response to the question Carlton did ask, distractingly out of breath. Carlton stops and Spencer nearly runs into his back. Now he’s breathing hard _and_ too close. Even Spencer has to take a moment.

“It’s quiet out here,” Spencer shatters the same quiet to point out, but Carlton follows his meaning, amazingly. It is quiet, beyond isolated. Even if the girls had been screaming, no one would have been around to hear it, and there wasn’t anything but trees for the sounds to echo from.

Telling him to hush is a waste of time. Carlton does it anyway. The need to speak is nearly overwhelming; it’s been far too long since he last told Spencer to be quiet.

He starts walking again when Spencer points out the obvious. Of course they have no proof. This is all for Spencer’s crazy “vibe”, his supposed _feelings_. But Carlton keeps scanning the ground, looking for crushed wheat, a cigarette butt, anything.

He doesn’t have to fake a sneer this time. It’s just not aimed at Spencer.

...

They walk for a while with just the noise of the bugs, and Lassiter is making it clear he’s not going to talk to him, not even to make conversation, not even with Shawn being just as careful and silent behind him. His back is a straight line, tense and annoyed. Not that He’s ever really seen Lassiter relaxed. There had been a moment there, they had been pressed close, but the hands on him had felt gentle, and Lassiter had been breathing slowly. He _could_ have been relaxed, he could have been at ease, and even with the idea almost unimaginable, Shawn couldn’t quite shake it.

Every look at Lassiter’s back just reminds him that he smashed it into little pieces by not paying attention, by slipping up and asking something that—truly, sadly—was undeniably a mistake, a mistake he still can’t believe he made.

Not that he’s about to apologize to Lassiter’s back. He’ll just…buy Lassi lunch or solve another case for him or something.

“It’s quiet out here.” And yes, perhaps there is no reason to point out something so obvious, but he’s got to say something. At least Gus isn’t around to hear him.

Lassi just grunts and nods, like what Shawn said makes sense. Which, well, it does, since it’s the kind of place where a person could scream their head off and no one would hear, but that’s pretty obvious too, to a trained detective. Then he flicks an extremely disgruntled look in Shawn’s direction anyway right before Shawn can add something about how Lassi probably already knew that.

“Shut up, Spencer.” Lassi’s words are practically a whisper and not at all the kind of forceful talk that had gotten them both into this mess. Well, Shawn into this mess. It’s more like Shawn had dragged Lassiter into his mess with him than any sort of shared messiness. At least he’s pretty sure, but he can’t seem to stop himself, so he’s not really going to question it until he has to.

That would be like saying he’s alone in this and Shawn’s shivering at just the idea, all alone in his chair with a hot stripper plastered to Lassiter’s lap.

But Lassiter has stopped again so Shawn stops walking and stops thinking and just studies Lassiter as he frowns and angles his head. He’s listening and Shawn bites his lip to keep the words in and tries to listen too. There’s…something…like an echo of a beat and Shawn drops his eyes to Lassiter’s chest, wondering if he’s just hearing his heart.

“We really don’t have any proof,” he remarks and Lassiter blinks and stops trying to pretend he’s got Super Hearing abilities. Then he blinks again and his mouth curves up.

“Not even a _feeling_?” Lassi starts with a sneer and Shawn holds still as Lassiter’s gaze sweeps up and down his body. His eyes flick away in the next second and Lassiter presses his lips together in a flat line. Shawn opens his mouth.

Just like before his tongue gets stuck and after a pause he tries again.

“Don’t tell me the great Shawn Spencer doubts himself.” For the first time ever, Lassiter is quicker than he is and turns around after grunting the words. He’s not striding through the field anymore, but stepping carefully and scanning the ground for traces of…anything…that might back up Shawn’s theory.

Shawn watches him and then pops into motion behind him. He’s not really looking for anything small. It will be big, once they do find it, he knows that much, but Gus isn’t here to tell him to stop, and he likes prowling around at Lassiter’s back. If Lassiter notices Shawn mimicking his cop-walk, he doesn’t say anything about it.

Shawn’s getting really warm, and it’s so not because of his flannel.

He hadn’t felt like this around Lindsey and it isn’t anything at all like the warmth he feels around Jules. Not that he’s sure he wants to be thinking about Jules now. This is the first time he’s been alone with Lassiter since…since then. Since the mind-blowingly hot sex. Since opening his big mouth and asking the question that Lassiter still hasn’t answered, not that Shawn needs to know or anything.

Shawn has had sex with Hornstock. He’s 93% certain he’s better at it. What he’s unsure on, what he’s kind of figuring out now, is why he slipped enough to ask at all. And figuring out things is supposed to be what he’s good at. If he starts to suck at it now, his father is going to be even more disappointed.

...

Spencer is frowning, Lassiter can see the unfamiliar expression on the other man’s face whenever he glances back. A year ago he would have been dancing with joy to see Spencer that off-balance. The man clearly doubts himself, and in all likelihood it’s because of that woman.

He’d certainly thrown himself at her fast enough to set most heads spinning. And definitely without thinking a damn thing through, without once stopping to look around, mooning as much as O’Hara over some handsome, charming, incredibly capable Federal agent. Spencer had just given in to temptation like he had never heard of resisting, as though he’d never held on tooth and nail to what was left of his self-restraint and dignity, never known what it was to let himself go and have it tossed back in his face with one careless sentence.

It is a stupid way to operate, Carlton reminds himself again, his stomach clenching. It is about time Spencer learned to keep his guard up.

That…woman…had betrayed him, and then literally put his life on the line.

Anyone would doubt themselves after that. He’d just never thought to see Spencer beating himself up over it, but it just proved there were real feelings down beneath all that smartass remarks, and it’s almost more upsetting to think that perhaps Spencer had already had his guard up, and he’d let that woman past it for some unknown and insane reason.

Telling himself that somehow only makes his stomach clench tighter. He could still see the scene at the airport when he closes his eyes; still feel shaky and ill like he had when he’d learned where she’d spent the night, the moments when all he could think of was Spencer’s mouth, his hands, on her.

“Everyone plays the fool sometimes, Spencer,” he hears himself, rough and low, and then makes a point of not turning around or stopping. The truth of it burns through him like the scotch he wishes he were drinking.

...

“Everyone plays the fool sometimes, Spencer,” Lassiter says, out of nowhere, and even though Lassiter is still walking, Shawn stops.

Lassiter’s shoulders are down and he’s breathing heavily. They aren’t walking that fast and Lassi likes to work out. They are easy signs to read, even without factoring in Lassiter’s tight words, his short hair, the Tums. Lassiter is upset, something pressing on him again. Something in the last month, and just as Lassiter seems to notice that Shawn hasn’t stayed with him, Shawn runs to catch up.

...

He walks on for a while before he realizes that Spencer has stopped, but by then Spencer is hurrying back toward him, trying a flashy smile.

Of course, once he’s there, Lassiter is frowning defensively at him and words, the kind of brilliant words that get Shawn in trouble just as much as they get him out of it, come flying out of his mouth. His hands are out though, palms up, and that should count for something.

“I didn’t know you liked Aaron Neville songs, Lass.” Judging from the moment in which Lassi’s mouth falls open and then snaps closed, Shawn doesn’t think it does. He drops them back to his sides and tries a smile from habit even though it’s not going to work.

...

He’s never going to learn. His smiles don’t work on him. Carlton can feel the fire spreading out from his gut to his legs, his arms, his face. He works his jaw once or twice and doesn’t think that counting is going to help this time. He thinks, dimly, that the last time he’d been this angry there had been when he’d come home to an empty house after days at a motel to avoid yet another fight, and found a note from his father-in-law telling him what a bad husband he was.

“Shut up,” he breathes the words and when Spencer swallows and tries anyway, he reaches out and clamps a hand over his mouth. “Shut _up_ for once,” he growls. “And that’s not an Aaron Neville song.” He’s as bad as Spencer, babbling out meaningless crap when he ought to be saying something important.

Spencer’s breath is hot and damp on his palm, and Spencer must have licked his lips recently, because they’re wet. Above his fingers are Spencer’s eyes, shifting color as much as Spencer shifts his mood. For now they seem green, which puts Carlton strangely in mind of green M&M’s even though the shade is completely different.

He snatches his hand away.

Spencer is being quiet. That should be enough to distract him. He’s not even going to try to deny that he needs the distraction now.

“Did you drag us out here for nothing, Spencer, or do you really have something?” He’s facing Spencer with his hands at his sides. He’s close enough it would only take a step, and even though he’d thought Spencer was done with him, Spencer isn’t moving either, isn’t even talking.

“Do you even have a clue to lead us in the right direction or is this another monumental mistake like your last one…?” Carlton’s teeth click he shuts his mouth so quickly. He thinks he’s internalized the Chief’s voice telling him to behave himself. That’s a hell of a lot better than realizing that seeing Spencer so silent and confused has him a little thrown. He hadn’t even known Spencer could be this silent for this long, even sucking his dick Spencer had seemed to be talking.

Spencer pulls in a breath and Carlton makes himself hold his gaze and clears all his inappropriate thoughts, just in case. He’s not about to be as careless as Spencer is becoming.

...

Lassiter is thinking about Leikin. Her name slides across Shawn’s consciousness, stinging and rough, but hardly noticeable after this, the stream of realizations as he replays the past weeks, the past few minutes, with picture-perfect clarity. If Lassiter is going to blame him for that one, he should have done it then. Besides, it should have been obvious that if Shawn hadn’t been so thrown off his game by…everything else…than he never would have fallen for her at all.

Shawn can clench his jaw and look tense too. Next thing he’d be going bald and complaining about his bad back. He shudders a little at thought, no matter how surprisingly angry he is. He’s not just warm, he’s hot now, sweating and red in probably a really unattractive way, and that’s Lassiter’s fault. Lassiter had had plenty of chances to ask him instead of just leaving, but that’s exactly what he had done, walked out.

“What do you want, Lassi?” Shawn steps back up into the mix in a way he hasn’t done since a grade school fight—Jimmy Smith, age ten, and that time Shawn had realized his mistake and run away a second later. This possibly isn’t the wisest decision he’s ever made either, considering how big a fan Lassiter is of physical violence. But other than slamming him into things in a way that Shawn found not a little kinky and enjoyable, Lassiter had never once really hurt him or held him upside down over a toilet.

So he stays where he is and hears his voice getting higher. Lassiter stays where he is too, though he narrows his eyes and cocks his head. Shawn licks his mouth which is dry from Lassi’s hand, tastes salt. Lassiter still isn’t speaking, and Shawn would wonder about that if he weren’t so pissed. “Do you want me to say that I don’t always know how things will turn out? That I was wrong?”

And wow. That knocks the air out of him, because it’s never come out like that…ever.

...

His own thought stops him. He hadn’t thought it was possible for Spencer to really get careless. He stops, knowing it’s awkward, that he’s staring, but Spencer reads something from his expression, and then he frowns, looking genuinely pissed off.

“What do you want, Lassi?” he demands and Carlton grins tightly and steps into his space, letting Spencer go on, his voice rising as he asks if he should admit that he was wrong, because yes, Carlton would like exactly that. He’d _love_ to hear Shawn Spencer say he doesn’t have all the answers. He’d get down on his knees the very second that Spencer admitted he doesn’t always know how things will turn out.

Spencer finishes snapping at him then freezes, scratching at his neck before letting his hands fall down. For a long thirty seconds he is silent, his gaze traveling up and down Carlton’s body, finally settling on his face. His eyes get wider than Carlton has ever seen them get, and then he backs up and shakes his head so hard he ought to have whiplash.

...

His neck itches and Shawn hates being this sweaty unless sex is involved and that just brings him right back to Lassiter. For one moment he is, he realizes with faint shock, so angry he can’t see anything beyond Carlton’s fiery blue eyes, because he _had_ been on his knees there, and then in his _arms_ , and he’d called him _Carlton_ when just the sound of that name was normally enough to make Shawn curse Lassi’s parents. _Carlton_ , out loud and begging, and what kind of detective couldn’t see something so freaking obvious? What kind of detective couldn’t tell from that how much Shawn wanted him, how much he loved him?

Oh sweet justice.

Carlton’s expression pops into his head with an ease that's possibly even scarier than his previous thought.

Nonono. Shawn shakes his head and backs up even while the pieces are locking together into a Hi-Def liquid plasma picture.

It’s quite possible he’s been kidnapped by aliens who have been messing with his brain. Or that he’s on drugs, that Gus has been slipping him some of those little yellow pills he wasn’t supposed to have yet. Because Carlton Lassiter is a Civil War reenacting, uptight, freaky dork and there’s no way that Shawn would ever l…lov… There’s just. There’s just no. No way. Uh uh. He’s supposed to sleep with Lassi, get over it, play around, fly to the moon, then maybe settle down and marry Jules. Someday. Not…this.

He’s not sure at all about this.

...

“I didn’t know…” Spencer mumbles weakly right before he trips over his own feet and falls onto his ass.

...

Except that if he had…if he does…when Lassiter pushed him away, it hurt. It hurt so much worse than getting lied to, or left, or full on punched in the face. And Shawn would never allow anything like that to happen again, not ever, not unless, he actually, really does… _like_ like Lassiter.

“I didn’t know it would end up…like that…” he finishes because Lassiter is still waiting and he can just hear his dad yelling at him to stop mumbling, but he can’t look up anymore. He really hadn’t known how it would end. He hadn’t even wanted to think about it. The knowledge that had carried him into that bathroom at _Bootycall_ after Carlton had only been that he had wanted it, and that Carlton had wanted it too. If he’d thought about it at all, which hadn’t been for long with the vodka and tight fit to his pants, it just been the hope that once would be enough to make it go away.

Which was clearly just…wrong.

Shawn takes another step backward and flails for a second when his heel hits something. He falls anyway despite his windmilling arms and hisses when he lands ass first on something very, very hard. He slides off it and onto his knees, trying not to hear Lassiter’s amused snort, trying not to wonder just when he’d forgotten everything his dad ever taught him and gotten so careless.

A moment later a hand is in front of his eyes and he jerks away from it even as he looks up.

...

Carlton snorts out a laugh at Spencer’s shocked expression and smiles even more when this only makes Spencer give him a wounded, disbelieving look. His smile fades when Spencer slides forward to his knees.

Even enjoying the sight of Spencer making a fool of himself without an audience, Carlton’s hand is out, reaching to help him up, but then Spencer lifts his head and looks up at him. His mouth is open before he swallows. Spencer is flushed and hungry and everything he was before, practically offering himself in his field, after everything, with a case still unsolved, and when his mouth falls open again Carlton makes a noise in his throat.

...

Lassiter is tall and buttoned up and just a little damp from the heat. His eyebrows are in their usual unhappy slant but his eyes are bright and his mouth is almost soft. The look fades when Shawn doesn’t move and they both realize that case or no case, Shawn only has to push forward a few inches to have his face in Lassi’s lap again and oh Mylanta how he wants to.

Lassiter takes his hand back and Shawn looks to the side. He is in serious trouble here, and just to back him up his heart thumps hard against his ribs, though he almost can’t hear it over the floating, tinny sound of music playing in the distance.

...

The sound is startling in a field with just their heavy breathing and some quiet background melody to disguise it.

Spencer jerks away from his hand and then they both lift their head, angling it toward the undeniable sound of music playing from somewhere nearby.

Spencer’s hands flex, then curl into fists, and Carlton drags his eyes up over the man’s heaving chest, to his pink cheeks and eyes which are shining and wet in a way that makes it seem like someone has just sucker-punched him. It’s a thought, but Carlton knows he’s innocent this time. He pushes out a heavy breath of his own and aside from the breeze moving the grain around them and the faint strain of music it could be the only sound for miles.

Spencer lifts his head again and they both frown.

“That is not a voice from the spirit world,” Spencer comments pretty calmly for a man still on his knees and Carlton nods. When he puts his hand out this time Spencer takes it, all business as he gets to his feet and they both stare down at the ground. Carlton can’t even muster up some fake surprise.

“Guess you were right after all,” Carlton admits the obvious because it is so damn obvious. The circle of thick metal leading into the ground looks like the entrance to a pill box bunker, without the pill box bunker attached. It’s just a slightly raised circle, marked with military designations and the handles used to open it. There’s no sign of rust or even dirt. It doesn’t even look locked.

It couldn’t have lasted of course. It never does. Spencer always figures out the answer eventually.

Though there’s some comfort in just how stunned Spencer still looks, gazing from Carlton to the entrance and back again like the case is the last thing on his mind.

“I was right in handing this case over to you,” Carlton remarks. “I mean… Oh never mind.” It hardly matters anyway, Spencer doesn’t seem to be listening.

...

That is so what they have been longing to hear.

“That is not a voice from the spirit world,” he points out, in case Lassi has forgotten but Lassiter is giving him a half-assed frown at best. He holds out his hand before saying anything and Shawn takes it this time, brushing off his ass distractedly the moment Carlton lets go and his hand is empty.

“Guess you were right after all,” Lassi’s voice is flat and unsurprised, at least until Shawn blinks over at him. Then it lifts up and breaks.

“Spencer…” Lassiter warns him and there it is again, the warm, scrunchy feeling that makes Shawn grin even knowing it’s going to make Lassi angry. It’s weird. Definitely weird. His _dad_ likes Lassiter. On the other hand, announcing this at the next dinner with Henry ought to at least get him out of washing the dishes.

“You sent me this case?” Shawn says it out loud anyway, listening to Lassiter cough and watching him reach in his pocket for his cell phone. He frowns down at it for a moment while Shawn drops down to the man-hole cover…bunker entrance…thing and listens for the strange music again. He keeps his eyes on Carlton, taking in everything, mostly the fidgeting that says Carlton is aware that Shawn is watching him.

“O’Hara!” Lassi barks into his phone and wrinkles his forehead. “There are no bars out here. No bars! No I don’t what to get dru…O’Hara…” Shawn’s smiling again and this time Lassiter pauses to throw an exasperated frown his way too. He has a feeling that he’s always been smiling like this when Lassiter frowns at him. No wonder Gus had decided to talk to him. Dude. It’s just…embarrassing. It’s like having mustard on his face for an entire day, except instead of mustard it was _love_ and it had been there for _weeks_ if not _months_. Couldn’t Gus have been a little more direct? “Listen, get back to the car and radio for that team. Then get back to the field, Spencer found something.”

Shawn cocks his head and Lassiter’s face gets sour. Which just makes Shawn think of ways to make it not so sour, which is not helpful, overall, in his general freak-out and then with this case.

But he wonders if Lassi would stop him this time.

“O’Hara?” Lassiter tries again and then closes his phone. Shawn looks down and shuts his mouth. He manages to stay quiet until Lassi snaps at him again, and then it’s like he can’t help it, he’s got his head angled to one side and he’s tossing out his best and worst lines at Lassiter just to see Lassi get all flushed and riled.

Lassiter opens the heavy door with a nice eye roll at Shawn’s attempt at flirting and then he’s reaching for his gun, not even hesitating.

The blast of music just makes him frown. Not a Cure fan, obviously. Shawn shuts his eyes, pictures the girls again and at least the eyeliner makes sense, even if he had never once thought someone who liked a song like “Charlotte Sometimes” would be capable of violence toward anyone other than themselves and the basic rules of fashion. Even Depeche Mode had had more of an edge.

“The Cure?” Carlton wonders when Shawn mentions angst, then shakes his head and digs a penlight out of a pocket.

“Hey!” It’s like his heart gets louder, faster, the kind of adrenaline rush that meant Shawn ought to be running hard in another direction, except he’s not, he’s in Lassi’s face and scowling because he knows Lassiter enjoys the arresting part, but this is ridiculous. “You said no stupid heroics.” He even manages to do a pretty good Lassiter impression. Lassi just sets his jaw like big sexy TV cop and shrugs and Shawn’s still talking because Fearless Guster is one thing, Fearless Lassiter is another. Gus knows when to run. Lassiter _likes_ fights. “It’s big and dark and scary down there.”

Lassiter just waves his gun at him as he flicks off the safety. Shawn almost grabs it, since he’s pretty sure he’s a better shot anyway. But then he’d have to go down there in the dark and that is just insane.

“He’s going to know you’re there if he heard the door over the music,” he tries again, closing his eyes for a second to reason out the facts in a way that would make Henry proud. Lassi just uses that to climb into the hole and find the ladder.

“Then be very, very quiet,” Lassiter tells him and Shawn can’t help himself.

...

Spencer’s already got his hands on the handle when he turns back, staring with too much concentration on the metalwork.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asks gruffly, bending down and shoving Spencer to the side, not that it does anything to knock the sudden, uncomfortably annoying grin off Spencer’s face.

“Helping you save the day?” Spencer responds playfully, frowning distractedly for a moment like he can’t believe what’s coming out of his mouth either. It’s a good thing Carlton has long since learned to ignore most of the crap Spencer says. He can just roll his eyes and put his hands over Spencer’s and try not to notice how close they are, the way the other man’s breath hitches when they touch, or to remember how Spencer’s hand splayed over the stall door had been one of the sexist things he had ever seen.

It takes both of them pull the thing at first and then Shawn scoots back as the heavy metal slides apart and they are peering carefully over the edge into a dark hole in the ground.

There will be a ladder along the wall under the entrance, Carlton knows that. He just wishes he could see it. There’s a shaft of daylight that reveals of a section of floor and very little else.

The noise from inside is louder. He can call it music only because of the fact that it seems to have a sort of rhythm, but Spencer hums for a moment like he recognizes the song playing.

“What is it?” He doesn’t bother to feel embarrassed about asking. Spencer wrinkles his nose and Carlton watches his eyes turn inward again. As always, he wants to know what’s behind that look, what exactly Spencer is seeing because he knows it’s not any kind of ghost or vision. But Spencer refocuses back on him in a second and at least his usual triumphant smirk has returned.

“Eyeliner…black hair…the angst… Dude! It’s all very The Cure. It’s so obvious now, but I guess I was heading in more of a Depeche Mode direction…” That last part is almost to himself. At least Carlton thinks it is.

“The Cure?” Carlton remembers The Cure, or at least, he remembers busting more than one pair of teenagers in their cars on abandoned roads listening to that music. Whiny, overly sentimental crap was what he’d thought at the time. Spencer just shrugs.

“Must be one of their newer songs,” he says right as the music changes into something slightly more familiar. Carlton shakes his head after a pause and digs around in his pocket until he finds his keys and the small flashlight attached to them. His other one is in the car and he should have asked O’Hara to bring that with her.

“You stay out here.” He says as reaches for his gun too. He means it, not joking about Spencer’s ability to find trouble. But then Spencer is in his face and practically vibrating he’s moving so fast.

“You said no stupid heroics!” Spencer whispers furiously then shuts his mouth and pulls back. He waves at the black abyss below them and then licks his bottom lip. He opens and shuts his mouth one more time and Carlton actually blinks to see Spencer hesitating this much. “Lassi…” he points out in another whine. “…It’s big and dark and scary down there.”

“That’s why I have my big, dark, scary gun, and why you’re staying out here.” Carlton answers like he’s talking to a child. He’s not about to leave that girl down in the dark any longer. Especially if that sicko is down there with her. Spencer nods, like he gets all of that, but he’s still frowning.

“But Lassi, he’s going to know you’re there if he heard the door over the music,” Spencer reasons, taking a breath, and being that close to this much serious Shawn Spencer makes him at least pause. Then Carlton sets his jaw and moves. He takes the safety off his gun and holsters it again. It won’t do him any good to hold it on a ladder with his back to the room.

As for Spencer, once again, he’s not even going to ask.

“Then be very, very quiet,” he orders through his teeth and Spencer leans in and breathes out softly against his cheek. Carlton makes the mistake of meeting his eyes and then Spencer speaks, his expression entirely serious.

“Are you hunting wabbit?”

For several minutes almost all Carlton is aware of is the sound of his own teeth grinding.

...

Lassiter starts climbing down without even giving him a narrow-eyed, threatening stare.

“Lassi,” Shawn whispers again as Lassi slides down and hangs his feet over the edge.

“Christ, Spencer, what now?” Lassi hisses back at him as he apparently feels around and finds the first rung. Shawn sits back and crosses his arms.

“Well I was going to tell you to be careful, but now I’m not going to,” Shawn tells him and Lassiter drops down another few feet. He rolls his eyes again right before his head drops out of view and Shawn really, really wishes he wasn’t leaning forward to look over the edge after him, but he can’t stop himself.

“Spencer, for the love of…” He hears and then a muffled thump. A moment later the tiny light from Lassi’s keychain breaks through the blackness and Shawn exhales. He hadn’t known he was even holding his breath.

“Lassi…” he tries again.

“Spencer, what do I have to do to make you be quiet?” Lassiter’s voice is between a shout and a whisper, but Shawn can practically feel the blush that follows his words it’s so hot.

He grins down into the darkness for a moment and then narrows his eyes as the penlight moves.

“Oh for Pete’s…” Lassiter swearing is strangely reassuring and Shawn sees a dim light flickering from somewhere inside. He slides his hand along the metal rim and glances over his shoulder once, but there’s no sign of Jules or Gus. Lassi is going to be all alone down there.

...

But not even the shadows can silence Shawn. Carlton can still hear him, urgently repeating his name in low tones until Carlton snaps at him to shut up again. He’s not asking, he’s not _going_ to ask, he’s going to slam Spencer against the nearest hard surface the moment he gets the chance and demand to know just when he lost his mind. Thinking about it is almost enough to make him smile, at least until he runs into the first spider web.

The freak must have bought his decorations at a party store during a post-Halloween sale, Carlton decides as he runs into his second thick, sticky wall of fake spider-web complete with plastic spiders. It’s still in his hair, and he swears quietly again and pulls out his gun, aiming it forward with the light on top, though he can actually see a dim trace of light ahead.

There’s no sound from behind him, and Carlton can’t help getting nervous at the silence.

“Spencer?” he whispers once, but he can’t be sure if the other man can’t hear him or if there’s actual trouble. If there is, he knows it will be drawn to Spencer the same way Carlton seems to attract every psycho dating nightmare there is.

He hesitates, but the kidnap victim is his priority, and O’Hara should be on the way.

The music is louder in front of him too, something with purring sounds now, and he snaps a frown into place and keeps it there. The light is candles, cheap ones, some that smell like lemon and cinnamon, and Carlton peers around a corner and sees a round room, filled with more candles that remind him of Victoria’s love for potpourri. It has to be a fire hazard. In the exact center of the room is a girl tied to a chair, a blindfold obscuring most of her face. She’s alive and physically whole, but breathing hard. Even with that he can still see her dyed hair, her black lips, and the traces of eyeliner on her tear-streaked cheeks.

The boots are pretty much to be expected.

He hears a scrape of noise and a soft, high, feminine squeal behind him and spins in time to point the small line of light right into Spencer’s face.

...

Climbing down the ladder after him into the dark is very, very stupid. Lassiter had told him to stay outside. So Shawn should stay outside, and direct Juliet in.

Yet somehow he’s clinging to a ladder as his eyes adjust to the semi-darkness beneath the entrance and listening to the soft scrape of Lassi’s shoes ahead of him. Then Lassi swears again, in a quiet, frustrated altar boy kind of way, and Shawn lets go of the ladder and creeps up after him.

It’s cold and smelly and worst of all, dark, and if it weren’t for the thin light that meant Lassiter is up ahead, he’d turn around and run all the way back to the car. Then of course he sees the thousand extremely girly and sensitive candles and thinks he ought to throw away any Cure tapes that might still be in his old room.

His stomach is one big, tight knot, and when he feels the light touch along his arm that a second later he realizes is a fake cobweb, Shawn jumps and muffles his manly exclamation of excitement. Lassiter swings around anyway and for a second he’s blinded by the light, though not in fact, cut loose like a deuce, or a douche, or whatever that line is.

Lassiter is in full Dirty Harry mode, a tall, gangly sweaty hero with his gun out and his eyes narrowed. As hot as that is, Shawn can also see that he’s covered in so much spider-web he kind of looks like a stick of cotton candy and that he’s about to yell, or at least demand what the hell Shawn’s is doing down here when he told Shawn to stay back, when Shawn should have stayed back, as though Shawn has any idea why he didn’t, or at least any idea that can tell Lassiter.

He’s debating between two equally fun excuses when he sees the blur of shadow move away from the wall behind Lassiter. He follows it with his eyes and maybe gets a hand up. It’s like Lassiter can read minds too, or maybe just Shawn’s, because his eyes widen and then he spins with his gun up just in time to get tackled.

...

Spencer winces at the light but Carlton doesn’t lower it. He’s knows he’s glaring, and opens his mouth to rip that idiot a new one for coming right down in the middle of a place so dangerous without a light _or_ a gun only Shawn’s eyes suddenly dart behind him.

Carlton turns on his heel at the clear warning and his gun is up but the guy is too close. He gets a flash of a large figure all dressed in black and then the guy is on him.

...

“Oh my God, it’s like Kubiac went Goth!” All he can see is a mess of limbs and Shawn’s scurrying forward even though, hello, there’s danger up ahead. The light is easy to find and he grabs it just so he can see, maybe, offer Lassi words of encouragement or something.

...

He hits the ground hard, and he’d swear if he had his breath, but he doesn’t. The freak on top of him seems a little out of breath too, and Carlton knees him hard in the gut before the guy can make a real move for the gun and gets momentarily blinded by his own flashlight being aimed into his face.

“Shawn!” he yells out over the sound of the music that is _still_ playing and the light is immediately taken away.

...

Lassiter has his gun, and the guy on him doesn’t really seem to know what he’s doing now that he’s tackled Lassi to the ground. He doesn’t even seem to notice Shawn at all, and praise whatever saint protects uptight Irish-American detectives with bad haircuts for the fact that emo boys were possibly the only people in the world that even Shawn could take in a fight. But he can’t look away, and he can’t see anything to help unless Lassi wants him to throw a Mom’s Apple Pie scented Glade candle.

He should get Jeni out of here. That’s why they’re down here, that’s what his dad would tell him to do, after telling him to get the hell out too. He makes himself bolt in that direction, then stops, looking back again to make sure Lassi is all right.

...

“What’s going on?” There’s someone, a girl, probably the victim, asking questions in a high voice, but Carlton is blind for the moment. It’s why he doesn’t see what is probably a fist or at least an elbow coming at his face.

His head hits the ground with a definite crack and the right side of his face is hot and throbbing. Carlton swears and moves, because he can’t open that eye and that means a black eye at least and that is totally and completely Shawn Spencer’s fault for distracting him with his…for distracting him.

His vision has gone double so he settles for kneeing the perp on top of him for a second time and then shoving all the weight off him while the guy is groaning. He might be using more force than is strictly necessary, but he’s not swearing to anything. Besides, it feels good.

He still has his gun and he cocks it as he scoots back. He lifts his other hand to his eye. “Stay down,” he pants and squints around, his heart pounding double time until he finds Spencer with the victim, alive and well if looking anxiously over at him as he peels off the duct tape that was holding the girl’s wrists to the arms of the chair.

...

Lassi arches one eyebrow at him—probably all he can do, considering he’s covering his other eye—but Shawn nods, trying for a smile right before Jeni rips off the last of the tape in one move like a girl who knows her way around a bikini wax. Shawn winces, then has to look away from Lassi to catch her as she stumbles out of her chair and into his arms.

Lassiter is swearing again, and Shawn catches a word or two, and his name, in between listening to Jeni’s weepy announcement and dodging her hands as she points to the cheap makeup kit on a table, next to the paperback with “Raven” and “Dark” and “Soul” written on it. All it needs were some rubber bracelets and a t-shirt with the Crow on it and Shawn would swear that their guy works at Hot Topic, or used to.

...

“Shawn! I knew you’d save me!” the girl exclaims the moment the blindfold is off and Lassiter blinks his one good eye and drops his head tiredly. “He made me read!” she complains a moment later, standing up only to fall weakly against Spencer, who’s regarding her with all evidence of seriousness.

“The big bad man made you _read_?” It’s probably the candlelight that makes him think that Spencer’s eyes are twinkling at him when the man looks back up. Carlton quickly directs his eyes down at the whining lump on the floor that’s just starting to move.

“Get her out of here,” he orders Spencer and hears the first sounds in the distance of what is likely O’Hara swearing about the cobwebs.


	3. Chapter 3

“Dude, “Boys Don’t Cry”? Really?” Spencer asks the man curled up on the floor, spitting out a strand of inky black hair as he does. The sorority girl glued to his chest buries her face in his shoulder and maybe she has been held against her will in this dark hell-hole by this freak and forced to read, but Carlton doesn’t see any reason for her to grope Spencer.

Spencer probably just takes it as his due, one more person at his feet. Carlton probes carefully around his sore eye while keeping his gun aimed steadily on his suspect as O’Hara and an incredibly bright flashlight come into the room with them.

“What happened?” she asks after of course gasping and wondering where his flashlight is. Carlton checks his gun and stows it before bending over to cuff the suspect. He doesn’t answer her questions, mostly because his face hurts like a son of a bitch, but he jerks his head at Spencer without turning back around and hauls the guy to his feet.

He really hopes there’s another way out of here, because getting this guy up that ladder while he’s cuffed is not going to be fun. Thank God for obedient local deputies with strong arms.

He doesn’t look back until he’s out in the sunshine. The last thing he needs is to see Spencer with _another_ person all over him.

...

Lassiter doesn’t seem too interested right now, though Shawn will mention it later. For now he has to pat Jeni’s hair try not to notice how the dye is rubbing off on his palm.

Lassi yanks the suspect to his feet in one short, jerky, pissed off move and directs a glare at Shawn that is far too brief when Shawn makes a comment about the music selection. But he’s got a lot of happy memories set to that song. Well, a few encounters in the dark with girls who took “Lovesong” a little too seriously. Not even the cops showing up at what was probably his father’s request could ruin memories that sweet.

The choices so far have definitely been more on the moody, lonely side. Weird that Lassi didn’t seem to appreciate it. Shawn guesses he’ll have to do without seeing Lassiter in a plastic collar and a pound of dark eye shadow.

He just gets a chance to look for Lassi and give him a thumbs up but Lassi’s shoving Goth Kubiac toward the ladder, and while ordinarily getting a handcuffed guy up a ladder was something Shawn would want to see, Jules is frowning at him and there are a few other uniformed cops with guns scattered around.

“Hey, Jules!” Shawn greets Juliet and pries Jeni off him at the same time. She ends tucked against Juliet and staring at him with wide, raccoon eyes. “Tell me the cavalry is here.” The raccoon eyes have smeared all over Jules’ suit, which she hasn’t noticed yet. She’s taking in the Fortress of Solitude, the Marilyn Manson version.

“Not to brag, Jules, but Lassi and I were like any great crime fighting couple Starsky and Hutch...Bert and Ernie…Crockett and Tubbs—I was Crockett,” he adds, on the down low.

“Shawn.” She interrupts him and frowns, as though just noticing that Shawn has pretty much shoved the crying victim into her arms and is now scooting past the both of them. “There are some local deputies outside, and an ambulance. Our officers are on the way. But that still doesn’t explain what happened. And Bert and Ernie didn’t fight crime…”

“But they _were_ a great couple,” Shawn asserts immediately, imagining the drumroll even if he doesn’t have any drums. Or know how to play them. Juliet blinks once or twice.

“Are you sure you’re all right, Shawn?” she asks slowly. “It’s dark down here, but you look a little…” she passes a hand over her face but then Jeni perks up enough to get her attention and she doesn’t finish.

“Wow,” a male voice exclaims from the direction of the entrance, probably one of the locals sent in to make sure the place is clear. Shawn tilts his head that way and Juliet nods.

“Come on…” she bends down to whisper in Jeni’s ear as she leads her out, and while the sight of Juliet’s mouth that close to any part of another girl is all sorts of hot, Shawn darting back and forth behind them, bouncing past the second local deputy coming off the ladder to shoot up out into the light.

...

It’s disgustingly bright outside, though at least the locals are there to help him haul their Cure-loving suspect up.

The field doesn’t look very isolated anymore. There’s an ambulance pulling out into the field, and the farmer who owns the land is going to be pissed about that, not that Carlton gives a crap right now. One side of his face and the back of his head feel like he ran into a wall, his shoulder aches from pushing that giant clown dressed in black up a ladder, he’s hot, and his neck still itches from at least two bug bites.

He can still hear the girl complaining into Spencer’s shoulder, if he listens.

She’s safe now at least.

Carlton stands back to watch another local help her out into daylight—and to see her giggle over that, apparently not too shaken up by her forced stay at the Tim Burton Hotel.

Spencer comes bounding out of the hole next, glancing around as Guster comes up to fuss over him. Or yell at him, it’s hard to see the difference, until they bump fists and Guster leaves his side to make a show of helping O’Hara out of the bunker. Not that she needs the help. But it frees up Spencer for one second and Carlton watches the other man scan over the field, sees him stop when he finds the suspect and Carlton.

There are sirens in the distance and Carlton sighs and starts walking toward them, shoving the freak in front of him. He hears more cars pulling up while he recites the Miranda and the guy isn’t fighting him, but he pushes him into the Crown Vic anyway.

“Sorry,” he apologizes with the fakest smile he can manage and slams the door. The moment he does, and turns, he sees O’Hara pointing at him. The paramedics grab him a second later.

For a few minutes it’s hands all over him and another flashlight in his eye and he can’t see anything else. He can only listen to sirens, squealing, and Spencer. He can’t make out any words, not over the EMTs giving him some pills and an icepack, telling him to go to a hospital to get checked out, just in case, and then his own voice telling them he would and all of them knowing he’s lying. But the water tastes good in his mouth, which is dry as he strains to hear more, as he is finally released from all the tender loving care and allowed to walk back to his car.

...

Gus is waiting for him at the edge, scowling and going on about flashlights and Lassiter and all the usual things about the ulcer he’s naming after Shawn. A moment later they are sharing a look at the really, really large man wearing all that black and Gus is shaking his head. He has a point though; Shawn doubts there are many Goth aficionados in the African-American community, though there has to be at least one, somewhere.

Once she is above ground Jeni is back in Shawn’s arms, though she sniffles a few times and traps Gus for a while too. She takes a second to look at the guy Lassi is shoving into his car, and doesn’t seem to recognize him. The guy doesn’t say a word either, apparently taking his rights very seriously. She’ll have to look at him again down at the station, while Lassi and Jules try to figure out who that guy is, and how he knows the girls. Shawn almost asks her if she’s been to a Hot Topic recently, then decides to ask later.

But even though Jeni hasn’t stopped talking the way to the ambulance to be checked out she hasn’t stopped shivering either, so Shawn sighs and holds and glares over his shoulder at Gus who is hanging back now and shaking his head whenever Shawn looks at him.

Shawn glares at him with his mouth in a line. He can actually feel the wet eyeliner staining his flannel.

Also he has several words for Gus for not telling him about all this sooner. Odds are good they will not be in hushed tones.

They get back to their cars just as several S.B.P.D. vehicles pull up. There’s no sign of Buzz or the Chief, but one of the cars is full of about six screaming, excited sorority girls. Three of whom have taken Shawn’s advice and gotten their hair restyled. The Robert Smith-wannabe can suck on that.

Jeni finally detaches herself to run over to them and, Shawn could say what he wants about how annoying, and shallow, and well, dumb, some of those girls are, this group does seem to care for each other. Shawn watches them envelop Jeni in a hug and slides his eyes over to the ambulance, because the EMTs are insisting that Lassiter get looked over too.

His eye looks horrible, all puffy and red and gross and Lassi _just_ got rid of the sling and now this. The suspect is in the back of Lassiter’s car and Lassiter is making no move to be a part of all the official stuff going on that he normally loves, though he _is_ snarling at the uniformed guy trying to open his swollen eye.

Jules doesn’t seem to mind Lassiter being distracted. She’s talking into a phone about getting the crime scene team and ordering the local deputies not to touch anything. She’s pretty bossy. She’ll probably match Lassi once of these days, unless someone saves her from a lonely, sour-faced fate.

Someone should have tried to save Carlton, but then Shawn would never have gotten the chance. Though he most likely would have arrested whoever would have tried. Shawn narrows his eyes when Lassiter nods and frowns and obviously ignores whatever the EMTs are telling him and walks over to his car and sits against the hood. He’s got an icepack over his eye, but he uses his other eye to squint around the field.

Shawn waves at him from the middle of his circle of sorority girls and catches Gus giving him another Look. A look that means another Talk. He crosses his arms and Shawn points to his fly, which has been open for about an hour now.

He looks back at Lassiter when Gus whines and scowls and turns around to zip up. There’s a little thrill down his back when Lassiter glares at him then drops his gaze the moment Jeni swoops back into Shawn’s line of vision, smiling at him.

There’s black lipstick on her teeth. Shawn smiles back anyway.

...

Spencer must have finally gotten the adulation he was looking for. He seems like he’s being fairly quiet over there, with bouncing and squealing co-eds surrounding him on all sides.

Meanwhile Carlton’s fingers are freezing from holding the damn icepack the paramedics gave him. His pain pills haven’t kicked in yet and his headache is only getting worse with every excited cry. He’d like to know exactly who told the sorority girls they could come out to the crime scene; he has a feeling it was McNab, not that it matters, the latest victim is already smiling again.

Carlton chucks the icepack on the hood of the car but O’Hara appears out of nowhere and shoves it back at him before shouting at him to sit. Carlton sits. She even has her little pouting frown on. Carlton scowls back at her but he covers his eye again after reminding himself that it’s important to keep a partner happy.

“I figure you’ll tell me what happened when you make your report,” she offers, suddenly reasonable again, and Carlton snorts. It’s pretty damn obvious what happened. “When the girls calm down we’ll have them take another look at…that…guy.”

 _That guy_ is still sitting silently in the back of the car, staring down at his lap, his little flip of hair dangling in his eyes. Carlton has a feeling he’s composing some bad poetry in his head. Maybe he should ask if the guy was published, and send a volume to his wife…to his ex-wife. Almost ex-wife. To Victoria. To go with her potpourri.

Carlton lets out another breath. “Spencer found our suspect and saved the day,” he starts, waving a hand, only to jump to his feet when O’Hara is shoved aside and he finds himself being yanked up. He reaches for his gun and then the chattering around him sinks in and he realizes that Spencer’s flock of adoring sorority girls have circled him.

Some of them are even touching him. He keeps his hand right where it is, and strokes his gun, just once before he glances up and catches Spencer watching him again.

The noise around him is deafening, but he translates a line or two and shoots O’Hara a look after the second “oh my god thank you so much for arresting that guy, Detective Lassi-face!”

Only O’Hara is just smiling and Carlton lets his eyes narrow because the “Lassi-face” is a dead give away as to who sent them over here. And yes, he’s got a bitch of a black eye, and a headache, and he’s covered in store-bought cobwebs and there’s a definite vanilla and lemon stink around him now, but that doesn’t mean he needs a fan club to feel better.

He doesn’t want their pity, or Spencer’s pity, or their thanks for that matter. He doesn’t need it, even if it maybe feels nice to hear it and the EMT guys are looking at him like he just got a ticket to the Playboy mansion.

That’s not the point and Carlton takes one deep breath before he throws out his arms and gets them off him.

“All right, that’s enough!” He frowns into their puzzled faces and sees O’Hara’s smile droop a little bit. The four dark-haired ones have identical round, hurt eyes and Carlton’s mouth tightens. He’d look up, but he knows he’ll be getting the same look from Spencer.

He sighs.

“Okay you’re all right,” he growls out with his head down and then waves his hand. “Now go on. Go home. Get. Shoo.”

“What?” he wonders at O’Hara when the girls back away and strangely, O’Hara’s smile just gets wider. Her eyes slide a little to the side and then she giggles and steps back.

A crime scene is no place for a detective to be giggling. In fact, a detective should never giggle. Carlton frowns a little more as he watches her go.

“They just wanted to thank you,” Spencer says, quietly, from his other side and Carlton turns his head to find Spencer standing there with his hands in his pockets. He’s rocking on his heels and smiling a little, probably thinking how funny he is. “Even with a black eye, you’re charming.”

...

Lassiter looks a little better now that there’s some pink in his cheeks, a pissed off gleam in his one eye. He had looked too pale a few minutes ago, like he might faint or throw up. Those EMTs should have sent him to the hospital.

“I don’t need to hear that, Spencer, I know I did a good job,” Lassi says after a moment like he hadn’t been smiling for a second there with all the girls around him. He winces as he pulls the icepack from his eye and puts it to the back of his head.

Shawn clenches his hands and thinks that the back of Lassi’s head is probably swollen and nasty. There is absolutely no reason that he should want to take a look at it. Except for this whole weird _love_ thing that is seriously starting to mess him up.

But the proof that Lassi is fine and the same Lassi as ever is the memory of the horrified look on his face when the girls had first gone over to him. Though Shawn still doesn’t think it was totally necessary for them to grab Lassi’s chest, no matter how grateful they were or how funny it had been.

He looks back up when he realizes he’s staring at Lassiter’s chest, which had seemed like a nice chest, and one that he’d very much like to see more of, if possible. Lassi’s head must really hurt because he doesn’t follow that first snap with anything else, and doesn’t even yell at Shawn for staring.

Shawn takes the opportunity to consider what he knows, even what doesn’t make sense. Lassi doesn’t want thanks, or compliments. He apparently wants—or wanted—Hornstock, and wants—or had wanted, no, _still_ wants—Shawn. That’s something, even if Shawn only got once to H-stock’s at least twice. That’s hardly fair, no matter how he adds it all up.

Especially with Lassi all rumpled and dusty and cobwebby, his tie pulled down and his shirt loose.

...

Spencer has that inwardly focused look on his face again, and apparently has forgotten to shriek out the names of dead people or claim he’s talking to the trees or that the Crown Vic has an aura of unhappiness.

It puts this icy burn in Carlton’s stomach that rises up his throat, and he might wish for another antacid, but he has a momentary but terrifying feeling that it won’t do any good. Medicines seem ineffective in Shawn Spencer’s presence. The pills he’d been given for his throbbing head certainly weren’t doing anything. Nothing had helped him around Shawn Spencer. Not one single thing he’d tried.

He grunts at a renewed spike of pain in his skull that is only going to get worse and Spencer twitches and focuses out again, on him.

The sun is setting, there’s no reason that this field should still be so warm.

“That eye must hurt, you should leave the ice there,” Spencer remarks and he’s quiet enough again that Carlton shifts on the car, scanning the area but both Guster and his partner seem to have vanished. He’d be suspicious if he weren’t busy wondering why Spencer feels the need to keep stating the obvious today.

“Look, Spencer.” It’s as far as he gets, because Spencer had saved the day, just like he’d told O’Hara, and Spencer had already heard that from his co-ed clients. He didn’t need to hear it from Carlton too, even if it would get them out of this mess, let him leave with what’s left of his dignity. But Spencer is staring at him and when he opens his mouth he can’t think of what he’s supposed to say. Spencer is just standing there…quiet. It’s freaky.

“Thanks for the concern, but I’m fine,” Carlton manages, and gets to see Shawn Spencer go still in a familiar way, sort of stunned. It makes him wonder if Guster had slapped him again recently. “We would…” He has to cough, and where the hell had he left his water? “We would never have thought to look underground.” At least not in time to save the last girl.

Spencer blinks once or twice and angles his head to the side. In a minute he’ll be grinning slowly in that way that says Carlton has done something cool and there’s no way Carlton is waiting outside Spencer’s little clubhouse, again, to find out why. “It wasn’t any psychic crap,” he adds with a frown, thinking it too, as much as he can around the pounding inside his skull.

...

Shawn’s head is up at the first words from Lassi and if he finds that weird, than Lassi must think he has finally lost his mind. Lassi stops, rolls his shoulder, then winces when that probably pulls at his head wound.

“We would never have thought to look underground,” Lassiter admits in a rough voice, his one eye wide, and then he clears his throat and stands up straight. He drops the icepack on the car and takes a deep breath.

Shawn shuts his mouth, which might have been hanging open for a while there, and then does his best to keep from smiling. He can’t breathe at all, that bruised chest feeling coming back, but apparently that’s not going to wipe the grin off his face. Nothing seems to be able to, not even the knowledge that Lassiter is getting more uncomfortable the longer they stand there, not talking.

“I know it wasn’t any psychic crap,” Lass breaks the silence first and Shawn spends a moment wondering if he should look at a camera, because he’s having that Ferris Bueller moment where Jeannie saves Ferris even when she didn’t have to.

Not that he wants Carlton to be his sister. Or Jennifer Grey, even if she can dance.

That is not what he wants at all. He wants to know what Lassiter wants. And he wants to see Lassiter naked—which really ought to sound more disgusting than hot, but which sounds totally hot and would probably sound even hotter if he said it out loud. He wants to not deal with sorority girls ever again too, especially when they were getting in the way of the first two things he wants. Beyond that, he’s not really sure.

Lassi’s not volunteering anything either, just standing there and breathing shallowly, listening to Shawn hum Cure songs and try to say something to get him closer to where he and Lassi were before The Question.

The sun is going down, leaving the sky fiery orange and the air still. There’s sweat at the edge of his hair, underneath his clothes, making him itchy, making him think about showers, and what he might do in the shower later. If he thinks hard enough, he might forget that he’s let the silence stretch out between them again, and that they are both just standing there, breathing in and out, not saying a word. Except that Shawn doesn’t forget anything.

He takes his eyes off the sky and studies Lassiter. Lassiter lifts his chin, shifting a little to face him and Shawn opens his mouth to point out that Lassi is still covered in webs. Lassiter’s jaw clenches before he even breathes in. Everything about him says ready for a fight, and it’s not like Shawn came over here to pick on him, or make him blush, or to gloat, or to fall down and slide his hands up Lassiter’s legs for no good reason other than he wants to. He doesn’t know why Lassiter would expect that from him when he’s clearly trying to be nice. Just because that’s what he always does…

Oh.

He can practically _feel_ Henry smacking him on the back of the head.

Well this is different. He knows why now. It all makes so much sense once all the evidence slides into the right place.

“Wow,” he says out loud, because he really had been doing just about anything to get his hands on Lassi. Or Lassi’s hands on him. No wonder Lassi had such a wary look on his face; not once had Shawn ever just said “take me away, Lassi” –outside of early morning fantasies anyway. “I get it now.”

...

“…But you figured it out,” he finishes, and Spencer’s face is frozen in a weird smile, a slight scowl between his eyes. If Carlton didn’t know better, he’d say Spencer looks surprised. Really surprised. As surprised as he had looked before, sick and scared and motionless, like someone had just clocked him in the jaw.

“Wow. I get it now,” Spencer murmurs to himself and brings up one hand up from his jeans to scratch at his neck, where a bug has gotten him too. Carlton’s lips quirk up despite the pain he’s in. He forgets to smile in the next moment, when Spencer keeps talking.

...

He has to just…say it. Just speak the truth…out loud…in a way that not even Carlton Lassiter can interpret as an insult, or a joke, or some sort of veiled threat. Shouldn’t be hard.

Shawn opens his mouth, shuts it, then blurts out the first words that pop into his head.

“Believe it or not, Lassi, I’ve had my share of black eyes,” he admits, looking straight at him, and Carlton can hear himself responding, snapping out something that Spencer ignores. Or maybe he doesn’t ignore, because it makes him push forward, until they are close again, as close as they were when they got to this field, in that bathroom, when all of this started.

...

Spencer’s mouth is still moving a mile a minute, and Carlton catches his breath, hears one word, a name, and actually lifts his head.

“Henry hit you?” He never once imagined Henry was the type to hit a child, not even Spencer, but Shawn’s mouth is quirking up, so either he’s lying or Carlton got the story wrong.

He should have known he got it wrong. He’s always getting it wrong. Spencer goes on about keeping his guard up and all his Academy boxing lessons spill out of Carlton’s mouth before he can try to think of anything else to say, startled and worried that somehow Spencer _knew_ that he’d been thinking about this exact thing back in the field.

...

“You know…believe it or not, Lassi, I’ve had my share of black eyes.” Okay, not exactly what he had in mind, but it will do. Shawn goes with it. It’s even true.

“Oh I believe it,” Lassi counters immediately but holds back whatever else he was thinking about saying when Shawn hops forward. That of course, has him oh so very close to Lassi, and he thinks taking a step back again might be wise. Not that Shawn has ever, or will ever, seriously consider acting with wisdom.

“For the last one Henry slapped some meat on it.” Possibly the grossest experience in his life. Stinky raw meat being pressed against his face while Henry had gone on and on about the steaks he’d been going to barbecue.

“Henry hit you?” The disbelief in Lassiter’s voice recalls Shawn to the moment and he considers rolling with that story for half a second before he shakes his head. Lassi would eat that up though.

“No. Well yes, but not really. He was trying to teach me boxing, and I wouldn’t keep my guard up.” Weird that now the memory of Henry fussing over him and gently rubbing his back makes him smile. He remembers lots of pain and yelling at the time.

Lassiter grunts, like he knows about that, but then he does have a black eye.

“You need to be more careful,” Lassiter warns him darkly, and Shawn turns his laugh into a gasp and waves the warning off.

...

“You need to be more careful,” Carlton announces, and Spencer gives him a look that says, in case he has forgotten, that he is the one with the black eye and bump on his head. Carlton feels his face get hot and looks away. “In any case, you don’t seem to have problems with that now,” he finishes, to say something, only the words come out strong and bitter, and he swings his gaze back up in time to catch the flicker of alarm in Spencer’s greenish eyes.

His mouth makes a soft little circle as it drops open and then Spencer shakes his head and whispers something.

...

He’d thought keeping his hands up all the time was dumb when it was easy enough to just move, not that Henry had really seemed to get the value of running away from a fight ever. Running away at all, not really Henry’s style, which just proved Henry had problems, because standing here was terrifying. Following after Lassiter in the dark had nothing on this.

...

“What?” Carlton snaps without thinking and Spencer narrows his eyes, brings himself back to the moment.

...

“Flower pot,” he blurts out and lets Carlton blink for just a moment. “I thought keeping my hands up was stupid when I could just move around and I tripped over the last flower pot of…the last one my mother had left behind.” Spencer shoves his hands back in his pocket and rocks back and forth, once. Carlton thinks maybe that whiny music has driven him crazy, or that maybe he’s dreaming or drunk in a bar somewhere and hallucinating this, because it sounds like Spencer is being…honest with him.

Why? No use denying that he’s wondering why, that he’s always wondering why and how with Spencer.

...

“I broke it,” Shawn admits quickly when he realizes all he’s said in at least two minutes is “flower pot”, because Lassiter _still_ isn’t saying anything.

“Anyway, I broke it. Henry wasn’t too happy. Especially when I ruined dinner. The steak....” He looks up and Carlton transfers his glare to the ground. He breathes out, loud and awkward as he segues back into the case. “So anyway it was hardly your fault that Kube over there got your eye…”

...

Carlton spends a moment trying to understand the “Kube” reference than gives up when Spencer starts listing the reasons why it’s okay that he messed up.

...

Lassi swallows like he could use a drink. Shawn pulls his hands out of his pockets again and uses them to scratch at his neck when they still want to slide all over Lassi’s body from his waist to his hair and his lumpy skull.

He’s not sure why he’s telling a story about falling on his face and getting meat put on his eye, but then he’s not sure why Lassi is listening. But talking makes some of the knot in his stomach go away, and he can look up into Lassi’s one hot blue eye and breathe out again.

“Anyway,” he says again, itchy and warm all over. He’s still talking, but it seems better than asking that question again, or any others. And Lassiter is still not speaking. He’s just staring. Then he swallows again.

Lassiter hadn’t wanted Hornstock to talk. Not even a little bit. Had specifically told him not to.

Shawn swallows too, and keeps talking, because Lassiter is letting him, and obviously that must mean he wants him to. Lassi is pretty quick to toss out the “shut up, Spencer”s when he doesn’t.

“And it was hardly your fault that Kube over there got your eye, since it was dark, and you were hampered by spiderwebs…”

...

“And a flashlight in my face,” Carlton points out, even when they both knew the reason he had ever let his guard down at all. Some things are too obvious to deny.

“Okay and a flashlight in your face, sheesh.”

Spencer flinches and that’s almost enough to banish any lingering doubts, or the unsettled, cold feeling that has been raging through him since Spencer first fell on his knees in the dirt in that field.

He had wanted a moment of truth, but all of this at once is just…weird.

“You saved her.”

“But we found her because of you,” he growls and glances around looking for his partner. Who is still, quite suspiciously, missing.

...

“But you saved her,” Shawn argues instantly. He’s beyond pathetic here and he’s helping himself to Gus’ American Express when he gets home, because Gus owes him big for not telling him about this. And it doesn’t even work, because, as Lassi is about to tell him, he doesn’t want any praise.

Lassiter’s eye focuses on him and then, swollen face or not, both his eyebrows snap down.

...

“I don’t want your praise, Spencer,” Carlton snarls at even the faintest hint of pity and again Spencer stares at him, inward and outward again, a smile stuck on his face a moment too late to hide the fact that he is hiding _something_.

If that had been honesty—and Carlton would have to ask Henry—it still leaves him wondering why, why the hell Spencer would tell him that at all. All the lies between them, the questions, and Spencer volunteers something that Carlton hadn’t even thought of, and it’s too late now to try asking about anything else, not after what Carlton just said.

Back in the field with just the two of them and Carlton in his face, Spencer had all but admitted that he didn’t know everything. Right before he’d fallen on his ass, too careless and confused to watch where he was going. Because of Carlton.

It makes Carlton feel like he just got clocked again, a hard one-two to the stomach, because even in pain he’s aware that he hurt Shawn Spencer’s feelings just now. Even with his head throbbing so fiercely he could throw up he’s thinking that he might not need Spencer’s praise, but Spencer might need his.

And that makes so much of Spencer understandable that it’s like meeting Henry for the first time, it’s like seeing Spencer speechless as Carlton strides past him again.

Which makes Spencer possibly the biggest idiot in the world, including that freak parked in the back seat of his car right now.

Carlton reaches out. It’s as easy as he remembers to grab a handful of Spencer’s shirt and haul him forward. He turns as he does, pushing Spencer into the hood of the car and bending him backward, just a little, before Spencer squawks and flails and rights himself. Then Carlton lets go, because he’s already got Spencer right where he wants him.

Spencer’s incoherent words are hanging in the air between them and Carlton holds himself still. This close he can feel the almost nervous way Spencer is vibrating, shaking as he leans in.

...

Hot hot hot. It’s hot this close to Lassi again, and that ball of fear in stomach is getting sharper and brighter and Shawn lets his head fall back anyway, only frowning a little when Lassi follows him in, where there are words and breath and lips at his ear, at his neck.

He doesn’t know what he said to bring this on, since he hadn’t been trying to get thrown between a Lassi and a harder place, but he’s all for it now that he’s here. It feels right. It feels good. It fits.

A thought like that just leads to other, dirtier thoughts and those are definitely something to mention to Lassiter later, when he’s in a more reasonable mood and not grunting and shifting and doing everything but rub himself against Shawn’s hip.

...

It’s his turn to breathe hard into Spencer’s ear, his turn to watch Spencer’s skin flush with color, his stupid hair all messed up and dark with sweat.

Carlton stops, his fingers twisting his wedding ring while he wonders why it is that, despite all their bickering and scratching at each other, whenever he moves close Spencer never moves away.

...

Shawn’s hardly going to object if he does. It’s so good he moves his feet apart, just a little. He knows they might have an audience; he just doesn’t care. Lassiter just moves in closer, not even seeming to notice that he does.

...

He’d asked for a moment of honesty. He had never actually expected it. Spencer probably hadn’t either. For a bare second he feels the heat of triumph, and then he’s just shuddering, looking away from green eyes and noticing the complete lack of spider webs on Spencer’s clothing.

“You don’t know what you want, do you, Spencer?” he demands, looking back up, and the noise behind them fades as Shawn pulls in a breath and holds it. Carlton’s chest is tight. He’s dizzy. The other man blinks, long, soft eyelashes brushing his cheek before he sweeps his eyes up.

...

Lassi is frowning, but Shawn is most definitely not teasing him. Not yet anyway. Just how serious he is depends on what Lassiter does next. Shawn’s already shivering, shaking, and Lassi must make something weird out of that, because he’s asking questions. Or just one. Very direct. Very accusing. Very, very hot.

“You don’t know what you want, do you?” Lassiter demands, but his gaze darts away, and by the time it returns Shawn knows he’s grinning, and that his grin is going to get Carlton angry, but he can’t help it. He knows what Lassi wants too, has known this whole time, he just wasn’t paying close enough attention. This would be a bad time to ask if Carlton is still seeing Hornstock, but Shawn’s pretty sure he knows the answer, so it doesn’t matter anyway

“I know exactly what I want,” he promises, since he does, now, and shifts, and it is more than sweat and air that question between them now.

...

Spencer’s hand comes up and Carlton can’t even think about moving when Spencer’s fingers trail across his cheek.

Carlton licks his mouth.

“Oh no, I know exactly what I want,” Spencer breathes. His lips are wet too.

...

“Carlton.”

...

The look in those eyes is teasing and confident. Too confident, not that it matters, because Carlton is blushing and hard and inches away from Spencer, who can feel all of that. Spencer is hard against his leg and his slow smile says he’s finally got Carlton right where he wants him.

Carlton falls back out of panicked reflex, stumbling over his own feet while he imagines several horrifying and embarrassing scenarios, because he knows Spencer can’t be serious. He just manages not to land on his ass and spins on his heels in time to see everyone but O’Hara quickly look away.

...

Watching Lassiter almost fall on his ass after that is almost worth Lassiter walking away. His helpful reminder to Lassi to be careful is just a fun little bonus that he’s more than willing to have Lassiter get him back for later.

...

“You should be more careful,” Spencer remarks smugly from behind him and Carlton grits his teeth and straightens his coat as he begins to walk away, not that he knows where he’s going when his car is behind him. Back to the cave to oversee evidence collection. That makes sense; it’s possibly even credible if the pleat of his pants manages to hide his massive erection.

Another bug tickles his neck and he slaps at it without hitting it. He’ll be grateful to never have to see this damn field again. It looks normal, but it might as well have been land-mined.

“…Lassi!” That stupid nickname pulls his attention back to Spencer, not that it had ever really left him. “We make a good team!” Spencer calls out so the whole world can hear and Carlton twists around immediately even though the conversation was over and he had ended it and he was supposed to be going on with his life now.

“I _told_ you to stay back!” he reminds that idiot in case that idiot has forgotten. “Did they never mention danger in your comic books?” His smirk is somewhat marred by the fact that he’s breathing too fast and that Spencer only looks mildly offended.

“First of all, I didn’t read comic books, Gus did. But if I had stayed back, I would never have gotten a chance to be here now, suggesting that we get together sometime in the near future to compare Launchpad from Duck Tales with Launchpad from Darkwing Duck.”

“Darkwing Duck wasn’t on the Disney Aftern…” Carlton can hear himself answering Spencer’s comment about Launchpad McQuack who, yes, was on both Darkwing Duck and Duck Tales, and closes his mouth too late. Spencer is grinning at him with obvious amusement, because he’d almost gone along with it, again. “Shut up, Spencer,” he finishes, weakly, and turns back around.

Behind him he can hear soft footsteps, and when he turns to look Spencer is following after him, that eerily knowing look on his face as he starts asking about food.

Carlton waits until he starts babbling about Chinese before he starts walking faster.

“Still waiting for that yes, Lassi,” Spencer reminds him and Carlton twitches around. Spencer is still following him, grinning like a lunatic that he obviously is. God help him, Carlton’s heart actually kicks against his chest. He’s still aroused too, and that can only mean one thing. He must like it.

And for once, because he wants to let Spencer catch up, Carlton knows exactly what that makes him.

...

Shawn opens his mouth even if the right words haven’t occurred to him yet. He’s possibly frowning, and if he was hot before he’s burning up now with the memory of Lassiter’s body heat. He pulls at his flannel as he turns around.

Lassiter is picking his way carefully across the field, staring in one direction, then turning and heading for the bunker. Shawn really hopes everybody keeps their eyes on his undoubtedly flushed and furious face. If they look down, well, is Lassi ever going to be embarrassed.

“We should do this again, Lassi. We make a good team. Seriously, our timing is _really_ starting to come together.” Timing like that means the sex is going to be amazing, not that he had any doubt after the first time. But tossing that out makes Lassiter stop. He jerks around and looks like he’s about to head back for half a second before he controls himself.

And yes, he had told Shawn to stay back, all touching concern for his well-being, but if Shawn had stayed back, then he would never have learned such awesome things about himself, and about Lassiter, and the cartoons that is looking forward to watching with Lassiter, preferably while both of them are naked, in a bed of some kind.

He only mentions part of that to Lassi of course, the non-naked part. They are in a public field after all. Well a private field with a lot of the public in it.

“How about a steak, Lass?” he wonders out loud a second later and Lassiter’s stride breaks enough that Shawn knows he heard. “Chinese?” Mu shu anything sounds better than steak right now anyway, but Lassiter stops long enough to turn around.

Lassikitten shakes his head, winces, and then resumes his stalking toward the bunker entrance, just a little faster than before.

It’s not the field that has Shawn all warm inside and smiling. Because he’s not into fields but he is apparently into Lassiter. Huh. And Lassiter is into him, even if he doesn’t want to admit it. Double huh. Gus hadn’t mentioned that part.

“Still waiting for that yes, Lassi,” he calls out just to make sure Lassiter turns to give him a frown that seems more confused than annoyed.

Shawn looks over at the car, the icepack, and then back at Lassi. Lassiter probably got a sunburn from being outside this much. And unless Jules or the Chief makes him, he probably won’t go get an x-ray. He has some hair dye from Shawn’s hand smudged down his cheek too.

There’s also a streak of white webs filled with bit of dust and dirt and probably traces of grain and walnut shells going down his back.

Shawn grins as he sets off after him.


End file.
